Pac-12 Weekly Recap (11/4/2024)

In the new-look Pac-12, all four of its conference members were in dual action during the first week of the season. The highest ranked of the bunch is Little Rock who took to the mats for the first time on Sunday afternoon. They eased into the season with duals against D2 power Nebraska-Kearney and D2 Central Missouri. 

Of the 20 bouts contested on Sunday, Little Rock only suffered four total losses. Coach Neil Erisman obviously made an effort to get mat time for a bunch of different Trojan wrestlers. That led to a startling lineup against UNK that may closely resemble their ideal lineup, but not many wrestlers saw action in both duals. Most notable is All-American Nasir Bailey, who got the start in both of the 133 lb matches and rolled with a pair of techs. 

157 lber Matt Biachi was the only other Little Rock wrestler to post two wins on Sunday. He had a tech and an 8-2 decision. All-in-all, Little Rock was limited to a regular decision in only four of their 16 wins. 

Little Rock will head to Missouri’s “TigerStyle Invite” on Saturday. With Cal Poly, Maryland, Purdue, and SIU Edwardsville joining the hosts, there should be plenty of quality competition for Little Rock up-and-down their lineup. 
 

Cal Poly

On Sunday afternoon, Cal Poly got their dual season underway with a clash against #30 Indiana. This was important rankings-wise because Cal Poly was one of the first teams left out of the rankings. A win over a solid team like Indiana, would have boded well for inclusion in this week’s rankings. That ended up not mattering as the Mustangs suffered a 31-11 loss to the Hoosiers. 

Despite the team setback, there were a few bright spots for the Mustangs. Three Cal Poly wrestlers picked up wins on the day and two of them came over ranked opponents. Most notable was at heavyweight, where #21 Trevor Tinker rolled to a 16-1 tech fall over #16 Jacob Bullock. At 133 lbs, #21 Zeth Romney held off a tough veteran in #25 Angelo Rini, 7-3. The third Mustang to win was #8 Chance Lamer at 149 lbs. Lamer stood toe-to-toe with a solid freshman Anthony Bahl and got the 4-1 victory. 

Like Little Rock, Cal Poly will head to Missouri for the TigerStyle Invite. They’ll have the opportunity to redeem themselves after the Indiana loss. 
 

CSU Bakersfield

Friday saw CSU Bakersfield get swept in a pair of dual meets with former Pac-12 opponent Stanford and Utah Valley. A trio of Roadrunners ended the day 3-0. As you might expect, AJ Ferrari dazzled in his CSUB debut with a tech fall and a hard-fought 5-0 win over #17 Nick Stemmet (Stanford). The two traded some barbs over social media in the days leading up to the dual, but on the mat it was all-Ferrari. 

The bookends for the Roadrunner’s ended up unscathed at Stanford’s tri with Richard Castro-Sandoval (125) and Jake Andrews (285) getting their hands raised twice. Castro-Sandoval edged Utah Valley’s Bridger Ricks, 7-6 before receiving a forfeit from Stanford. Andrews downed Utah Valley’s Jack Forbes 8-2, before gutting out a 1-0 win over Stanford’s Jackson Mankowski. 

CSUB will be out of action for a few weeks before hosting the Roadrunner Open on November 24th. 

Oregon State

A crowd of over 4,000 fans packed into Gill Coliseum on Saturday night as #24 Oregon State played host to #2 Iowa in the only dual meet of the week that took place between ranked teams. The 30-7 win for Iowa doesn’t necessarily illustrate how close some of the bouts that Oregon State lost actually were. 

The two Beaver wrestlers who notched wins on Saturday were Maximo Renteria (125) and Ethan Stiles (157). Renteria took out former California native Joey Cruz 7-3 to get Oregon State out to an early 3-0 lead. Stiles poured it on to defeat Caleb Rathjen by a 12-3 major decision. 

In the most anticipated individual match of the weekend, #7 Trey Munoz fell 9-5 to one of Iowa’s new transfers #2 Stephen Buchanan. Munoz scored the first takedown of the bout, in his debut at 197 lbs, and held the lead for most of the bout; however, Buchanan turned the tables late for the win. 

There was a similar situation at 141 lbs as Iowa’s Ryder Block came back late to defeat Nash Singleton. This was Singleton’s first bout at 141 lbs after spending the 2023-24 season competing at 149. 

Though he was never close to scoring a takedown, Sean Harman was able to hang tough with All-American Nelson Brands at 174 lbs. The deciding factor in Brands’ 2-1 victory was :01 of riding time. 

Oregon State will look to get their first win of the year on Friday as they travel to Fargo for a dual with North Dakota State.