No. 18 Stanford wrestling (10-3, 2-2 Pac-12) bounced back from a tough loss to Oregon State with a 23-16 victory over Air Force (5-5, 0-3 Big 12) on Saturday in Colorado Springs, spurred by major decisions from Garet Krohn and Nathan Butler and a pin by freshman Joey McKenna.
Butler, ranked No. 20 in the nation at 285, led off the meet with a 9-0 major decision over Marcus Malacek, spurred by a 4-point near fall in the second period that opened the floodgates. Redshirt sophomore Connor Schram followed that up with an 8-4 decision at 125 to push Stanford’s lead to 7-0 and get the meet started on a high note.
Although Mason Pengilly took a second straight loss at 133, McKenna pinned Dylan Hyder of Air Force in 6:50 for his fourth pin of the season at 141 to stretch Stanford’s lead, which was extended further by redshirt sophomore Tommy Pawelski’s 3-1 sudden victory at 149.
Redshirt junior Jim Wilson tacked on a 5-1 decision at 165 and redshirt sophomore Garet Krohn claimed his second major decision of the season, a 12-2 tally over Zen Ikehara at 184, to push Stanford’s lead to 23-12 with one bout left and put the meet out of reach.
Stanford will next return to Burnham Pavilion for Senior Night and its conference and home finale against Boise State on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.