No. 18 Stanford wrestling (11-4, 3-2 Pac-12) saw its regular season come to an unceremonious end in a tough 41-0 shutout at the hands of the No. 2 Oklahoma State Cowboys (12-2, 6-0 Big 12) on Sunday in Stillwater.
The loss was Stanford’s first shutout defeat since a 39-0 home defeat to Illinois in 2006. The Cardinal suffered two falls and two technical falls and were simply outmatched at all weights against an Oklahoma State side featuring six nationally ranked wrestlers.
Redshirt sophomore Connor Schram and sophomore Mason Pengilly dropped back-to-back decisions at 125 and 133 to open the meet, which was followed by the main course of the night: the No. 1 vs. No. 2 bout between Oklahoma State’s Dean Heil and Stanford freshman Joey McKenna at 141.
Although the wrestlers remained tied 1-1 after the first three periods, Heil consolidated his No. 1 ranking with a late takedown in the first sudden-death period to prevail 3-1 over McKenna and hand the Stanford freshman just his second loss of the season.
It was all downhill from there, as Tommy Pawelski and Nainoa Calvo suffered back-to-back falls at 149 and 157 before redshirt junior Jim Wilson took the first major decision loss of his career at 165 in a 13-5 bout against No. 1 Alex Dieringer.
Although Garet Krohn and Nathan Butler held their own against higher-ranked opponents at 184 and 285, technical falls by Dylan Morris and Zach Nevills at 174 and 197 took what wind that remained out of Stanford’s sails.
The Cardinal will now look to pick up the pieces and peak their conditioning leading into the Pac-12 Championships in Tempe, Arizona in two weeks on Feb. 27.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.