No. 25 Stanford wrestling (1-0, 0-0 Pac-12) dominated San Francisco State (1-2) 41-5 during an outdoor dual meet at Fan Fest on Saturday. The outdoor bout began in murky waters as Stanford stumbled a bit to control the ring, but the Cardinal soon found their footing as they went up the weight classes, finishing off the day with four pins in a row.
In the 125-pound class, No. 19 junior Gabriel Townsell kicked off the event with a 6-3 victory over the Gators’s Nathan Cervantez. Their match began like a thunderstorm but soon quieted into a drizzle as Townsell conserved his position and fended of Cervantez’s lunges. Moving up to the 133-pound, sophomore Anthony Le won his first match of the season with a 10-3 decision over Brandon Vu, but in the 141-pound, redshirt freshman Jack Ramalia lost to SF State’s Jordan Gurrola with a technical fall.
But then, the good times just kept on rolling for the Cardinal. Both redshirt sophomore Requir van der Merwe and redshirt sophomore Jared Hill defeated their opponents with major decisions in the 149- and 157-pound weight classes, respectively. Merwe – the “South African Tornado” – did not yield a single point to the Gators’ Isaiah Alva after keeping him down and controlling the ring for nearly the entire match. These major decisions were followed by an 11-7 victory for redshirt sophomore Brandon Dallavia in the 165-pound class.
At 174 pounds, Harvard-transfer Rico Stormer took down SF State’s Elias Rosales with a fall at 2:27. Like a flash of lightning, redshirt junior Austin Flores followed Stormer’s win with another pin for the Cardinal at 0:35 in the 184-pound class. Opponent Justin Pichedwatana did not even have any time to wrestle as Flores executed his precise and deadly takedown. And if two pins in a row wasn’t already enough, Stanford’s redshirt sophomore and team captain Nathan Traxler brought the heat with a fall in the second minute, grabbing the win for the 197-pound class; when the world needed him most, he delivered.
The final match of the afternoon, for the heavyweights, was between redshirt freshman Haydn Maley and the Gators’s Ricardo Jaramillo. It had already been three in a row for the Cardinal and Maley easily took down his opponent, but it was clear that he was looking for something more than a major-decision victory. He struggled against Jaramillo, but eventually got him in the cradle and pinned him down, marking the fourth consecutive pin for Stanford on Saturday. Maley also recently won the Princeton Open heavyweight title last Sunday; we may be in store for a streak, considering that Maley has not lost a match this season.
After winning nine of the ten matches against SF State (six of which were clinched with falls or major decisions), the Cardinal are looking classy and composed for the upcoming Roadrunner Open in Bakersfield. The tournament will take place Nov. 18, followed by a dual on Nov. 20 against Fresno State (3-1, 1-0 Big 12) in San Diego.
Contact Arman Kassam at armank ‘at’ stanford.edu.