Beavers Send Four Wrestlers to Finals
Feb. 28, 1998
FULLERTON, Calif. - Oregon State advanced four wrestlers to Sunday's championships matches as the Pacific-10 Conference Championships began Saturday at Cal State-Fullerton's Titan Gym.
OSU 126-pounder Jason Buce, 142-pounder Oscar Wood, 190-pounder Shane Zajac and heavyweight Mat Orndorff all won two matches Saturday to reach the finals. The Beavers are in second place after the first day of competition.
Arizona State leads with 104.5 points, followed by Oregon State with 93.5 and Oregon with 72.5.
"We're doing well," OSU head coach Joe Wells said. "I thought we wrestled a lot of close matches in the quarterfinals that we lost, and those guys could have come back disappointed. But they sucked it up and wrestled well in the wrestlebacks, and that's what it takes to do something."
In addition to its four finalists, OSU has four more wrestlers still in the running to place as high as third: 118-pounder Ben Richards, 150-pounder Eric Jorgensen; 158-pounder Isaac Wood; and 177-pounder Sanders Freed. The top four finishers at each weight, along with three wild-card entrants, qualify for the NCAA Championships that will be held March 19-21 in Cleveland.
"Now we've got another whole day of wrestling, and we're excited about that," Wells said. "We've qualified four guys, and now we want to qualify four more. That would be a great thing for OSU."
Buce opened the day by pinning Larry Vasquez of Cal State-Bakersfield in 2:54, then beat Cal State-Fullerton's Joey Coughran 6-2 in the 126-pound semifinals.
"I made the finals - that was what I wanted today," said Buce, who is now 25-4 with 11 pins this season. "I just wanted to get two wins and focus on one match at a time."
Buce will face fourth-seeded Zach Zimmerer of Stanford in the final. Zimmerer upset top-seeded Shawn Ford of Arizona State in the semifinals, 13-4.
"I knew Zach was tough, but the score was a little surprising," Buce said.
Buce has wrestled Zimmerer once this season, beating him 4-2 in a dual meet at Stanford.
Oscar Wood began his tournament with an 11-6 win over David Levitt of Boise State, then pinned Jonathan Archuletta of Cal State-Bakersfield in 5:23 in the 142-pound semifinals.
"It feels good to be winning, and to be winning with control - on my terms and without letting it come down to the wire," said Wood, now 24-5 and on a 12-match win streak. "For sure, this is my best tournament of the year. I'm wrestling smart."
Wood will meet Arizona State's third-seeded Tracy Brown in the final. Wood and Brown have been at numerous tournaments together over the years, always separated by one weight class.
"I know some about him, and he knows some about me," Wood said. "It'll be a good match . We've always just missed each other. He was bigger, then I was bigger, then he was bigger again. We're finally the same."
Zajac pinnd Mike Roper of Cal-Davis in 3:41 in the first round, then beat Oregon's Chael Sonnen 12-8 in the 190-pound semifinals. Zajac, now 21-5 this season, was tied 7-7 with Sonnen entering the third round but an escape early in the period put Zajac in control.
"I got into a tripod and shook him off, and that sparked it," said Zajac, who had been taken down twice early in the match.
"The only thing he was taking me down with wast he single (-leg takedown) - I just had to keep my feet moving."
Zajac will wrestle top-seeded Mike French of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo in the final. French beat Zajac 3-2 earlier this season.
"I stood still that whole match," Zajac recalled. "His only two points on a takedown came off my shot . He's pretty quick."
Orndorff pinned Shane Cross of Stanford in 2:11 in the quarterfinals, then continued his mastery of Oregon's third-seeded Rich Polkinghorn in the heavyweight semifinals as he won by injury default in the first period.
Polkinghorn defaulted with what appeared to be an upper-arm injury. "I think it was a previous injury that he'd had this week in practice," said Orndorff, now 25-6 this season.
"He didn't want to aggravate it. I don't think I did anything to hurt him."
Orndorff now gets another shot at the nation's top-ranked heavyweight, Stephen Neal of Cal-State-Bakersfield, in a rematch of last year's Pacific-10 final. Neal beat Orndorff 15-3 earlier this season.
"He's tough. I've got to wrestle my best," Orndorff said. "But I don't think I've wrestled my best against him yet."
Isaac Wood, whom OSU was hoping would have an outside shot at the 158-pound title, defaulted his first match to Boise State's Kirk White after Wood aggravated a sprained knee late in the third period.
But Wood came back to pin Adrian Garcia of Cal-Davis in 2:09 and beat Steven Duran of Cal State-Fullerton 10-3 in the consolation bracket.
1998 PACIFIC-10 WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS
TEAM SCORES AFTER DAY ONE: Arizona State 104.5, Oregon State 93.5, Oregon 72.5, Cal State-Bakersfield 57.5, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo 57.0, Stanford 52.0, Cal State-Fullerton 36.5, Boise State 31.5, Cal-Davis 18.5.
Day One Oregon State results
118, BEN RICHARDS - Dec. by No. 4 Rudy Ruiz, STAN, 7-5 in quarterfinals; dec. over Jaime Garza, CPSLO, 7-0 in consolation quarterfinals. 126, JASON BUCE (No. 2 seed) - Pinned Larry Vasquez, CSUB, 2:54 in quarterfinals; dec. over No. 3 Joey Coughran, CSUF, 5-2 in semifinals. 134, EARL HALL - Major dec. by No. 4 Mike Collier, UCD, in quarterfinals; tech. fall by Mauricio Mora, CSUF, 21-6 in consolation pigtails. 142, OSCAR WOOD (No. 1 seed) - Dec. over David Levitt, BSU, 11-6 in quarterfinals; pinned Jonathan Archuleta, CSUB, 5:23 in semifinals. 150, ERIC JORGENSEN (No. 5 seed) - Dec. by No. 3 Darryl Christian, UO, 5-4 in quarterfinals; dec. over Warren McPherson, STAN, 5-3 in consolation quarterfinals. 158, ISAAC WOOD (No. 5 seed) - Injury default to No. 2 Kirk White, BSU, in quarterfinals; pinned Adrian Garcia, UCD, 2:07 in consolation pigtails; dec. Steven Duran, CSUF, 10-3 in consolation quarterfinals. 167, CLINT WILSON - Dec. by No. 2 Jason Webster, CSUF, 10-6 in quarterfinals; dec. by Lionel Halsey, CSUB, 3-2 in consolation quarterfinals. 177, SANDERS FREED - Dec. by No. 3 Brian Bowles, CPSLO, 5-3 in quarterfinals; pinned Jason Riley, CSUB, 6:36 in consolation quarterfinals. 190, SHANE ZAJAC (No. 2 seed) - Pinned Mike Roper, UCD, 3:41 in quarterfinals; dec. over Chael Sonnen, UO, 12-8 in semifinals. HWT, MAT ORNDORFF (No. 2 seed) - Pinned Shane Cross, STAN, 2:11 in quarterfinals; inj. default over Rich Polkinghorn, UO, in semifinals. -OSU-
