‘Pokes complete undefeated season<\/p>\n
STILLWATER (AP) – Top-ranked heavyweight Steve Mocco won a decision against Joel Tapler to clinch an 18-13 victory against Oklahoma on Sunday and secure Oklahoma State’s perfect wrestling season.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma could have pulled off an upset with a win in the final match, but Mocco registered a takedown against Tapler four seconds into their match and led the entire way for a 10-3 decision.<\/p>\n
It’s the fifth season with no losses or ties since John Smith took over as head coach of the Cowboys (21-0) in 1992.<\/p>\n
“We knew going in that it was going to be a tough year, “Smith said. “Did I see us going undefeated? No, I did not see that.”<\/p>\n
Smith also led the Cowboys to three consecutive undefeated seasons from 1996-1999 and another in 2002-03.<\/p>\n
“I thought we had the toughest season that we have ever faced since I began coaching here, “Smith said. “The number of matches we had against quality opponents. On the other side of it, I think this is the toughest college wrestling year that there has ever been. The number of teams with quality people, we faced them all.”<\/p>\n
The Cowboys also got wins from Nathan Morgan (133 pounds), Zack Esposito (149), Kevin Ward (157), Johny Hendricks (165) and Chris Pendleton (174). Pendleton (29-1), the defending champion, notched an 8-3 decision against E.K. Waldhaus, who gave Pendleton his only loss of the season with an 11-10 decision in the first Bedlam match.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of emotion. I am not going to lie, “Pendleton said. “Any time that I have ever lost to anyone in college, I have prided myself on responding well and coming back and getting the victory.”<\/p>\n
Oklahoma got early wins from Sam Hazewinkel, the top-ranked wrestler at 125 pounds, and Teyon Ware, No. 1 at 141 pounds to tie the match at 6.<\/p>\n
But Oklahoma State got consecutive wins from Esposito, another No. 1-rated wrestler, Ward and Hendricks to go up 15-6.<\/p>\n
Justin Dyer scored a major decision against Jack Jensen at 184 pounds, and Joel Flaggert brought Oklahoma within 15-13 by beating Rusty Blackmon 3-1. But Mocco finished it off for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
Sooners coach Jack Spates said his team had a chance for the upset if Charles Jones could have beaten Ward in a meeting of unranked foes at 157 pounds. Ward won 5-2.<\/p>\n
“Coming into this meet, I thought we were going to win, “Spates said. “I think we had our opportunities to win. The 157-pound match was a bout that we were in. Charles was in the bout and he didn’t do enough to make it happen. That was a key one.<\/p>\n
“Bottom line is we had our opportunities to win and didn’t make it happen.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
‘Pokes complete undefeated season STILLWATER (AP) – Top-ranked heavyweight Steve Mocco won a decision against Joel Tapler to clinch an 18-13 victory against Oklahoma on Sunday and secure Oklahoma State’s perfect wrestling season. Oklahoma could have pulled off an upset with a win in the final match, but Mocco registered a takedown against Tapler four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-7V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}