Piccininni Wins 2nd Straight Southern Scuffle Title, Cowboys Win Team Crown
Piccininni Wins 2nd Straight Southern Scuffle Title, Cowboys Win Team Crown
Oklahoma State kicked off the New Year with a team title at the Southern Scuffle. The Cowboys had seven total placers and one champ.
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Oklahoma State kicked off the New Year with a team title at the Southern Scuffle. The Cowboys had seven total placers and one champ. Here’s how it all broke down.
The tournament got off to a fast start for the Cowboys as they lost projected #1 seed Boo Lewallen during skin checks. Boo is really OSU’s top guy to this point in the season, so the Cowboys had to rally from there.
Nick Piccininni came in as a pretty heavy favorite to defend his Scuffle title and for the most part comfortably worked his way through the bracket — with one exception. In the quarterfinals Nick survived a bit of a scare with Virginia Tech redshirt Sam Latona. With seconds remaining in the match Latona nearly finished a shot on the edge that would’ve given Latona 2 and the lead. Ultimately it wasn’t called and the Cowboy moved on.
Nick majored Lock Haven’s Luke Werner in the final. This match locked down the team title for the Cowboys.
One big storyline for the tournament was the highly anticipated debut of Kaden Gfeller at 141. The Cowboy sophomore came in aiming for his third Scuffle title after winning the tournament as an unattached freshman and again in his redshirt year last season.
He started off a little sluggish, winning a few close decisions in the early rounds, but came to form in the later rounds, first with a major in the round of 16 and then with this huge pin over All-American Kyle Shoop in the semifinals.
This set up the final between Gfeller and Stanford superstar Real Woods. Woods dominated his way to a 6-1 decision stopping Gfeller’s streak of Scuffle titles.
Wrestling over their heads
After losing Boo Lewallen at skin-checks and Joe Smith to injury, the Cowboys needed some guys to wrestle over their heads to hold onto the team trophy. They did.
At 157 Wyatt Sheets came in unseeded and off of back-to-back losses in his two most recent matches. He started off by upsetting 4 seed Taleb Rahmani then knocked off 5 seed Kolby Ho to make the semifinals. After falling to #1 Hidlay he bounced back by majoring the #6 seed where he met #3 seed Matt Zovistoski in the consolation finals. Sheets got a takedown at the end of the first to go up 2-0 and ended up taking it 3-1. Really nice tournament for Sheets.
The next weight up did the same. Travis Wittlake came in as the 5 seed at 165, worked his way to the semis before falling to 1 seed Shane Griffith. On the consolation side he took out Penn State freshman Joe Lee 8-4 then wrestled NC State’s Thomas Bullard for third. He controlled Bullard for a 9-3 decision.
Similarly, Anthony Montalvo finished sixth after coming in as the 8 seed.
Though his points didn’t count, another guy who certainly wrestled above projections was Dusty Hone. He was the story of the first day taking out Tariq Wilson and went on to a third-place finish in the tournament. It doesn’t look as though he wants to give up his starting spot at 141 as he really performed well here.
Dakota Geer finished fifth after coming in as the #1 seed. He fell to Ethan Laird of Rider and Penn State’s Michael Beard before beating Jacob Cardenas 7-3 in the fifth-place match.
One of the other big stories of the tournament was the return of Joe Smith. He won two matches before losing in the round of 16 and defaulting out of the tournament. Coach Smith stated in the post-match radio interviews that he didn’t expect it to be anything long-term.
Other Cowboys Rhett Golowenski, Reece Witcraft, Gavin Stika, Brevin Balmeceda, Bear Hughes, Austin Harris, and Andrew Shomers all competed and did not place.
Next up for the Cowboys is Norther Colorado in Stillwater on January 12.
Seth Duckworth is a Stillwater-based writer who covers Oklahoma State University wrestling for Pistols Firing Blog, the best OSU news and community site on the internet. Follow Seth on Twitter.