For Oregon State and sixth-year head coach Chris Pendleton, this Christmas holiday has been a much-needed mental refresher before the 23rd-ranked Beavers begin their run at the postseason.

From an athlete’s perspective, Pendleton hoped his guys would “take a deep breath” while still getting the lifting and cardio they need while they’re away.

And as a coach? With recruiting on pause, the objective for him and his staff was to work on the upcoming practice plan, watch some film, then spend time with those at home, as opposed to those in the wrestling room.

“Almost our entire staff has young kids…so it was a good time to say, ‘Hey, you know what, let’s enjoy time with our friends and families,’” Pendleton said. “And then we’re right back on the grind on the 26th.” 

And of course, there’s also the looming concern of any wrestling coach when it comes to the holiday season and all it entails.

You want your guys to enjoy the Christmas break — just not too much.

“I’m looking forward to seeing their weights today and then just moving on from there,” he said two days after Christmas. “I haven’t seen anybody for four or five days, so that’s my first goal.”

Once that’s all taken care of, his attention can turn toward 2026 and the rest of the season to come.

First Semester Assessment

While many of his wrestlers were surely stressing over letter grades in the classroom to close the first semester, Pendleton’s evaluation of their performance on the mat isn’t nearly as definitive.

“Right now, we’re doing pretty good,” he said.

“We just haven’t quite hit our full-strength lineup yet. So, that’s one of the things that we’re pretty excited about – just having all our guys back and knowing that it’s one of those deals where it does bring in a little excitement.”

At present, the Beavers have seven ranked wrestlers. But at 133 pounds – a weight at which they do not – Pendleton is hopeful for additional production from Gabe Whisenhunt.

“He’s just had a little bit of a bad luck streak,” Pendleton said. “(He) got hurt early on in the season, got hurt at Vegas (CKLV) and then knocked himself out cold trying to throw a ranked guy at Northern Illinois (Dec. 19).

“He’s one of those guys that we’re very high on (and) we know he’s better than his record. He just has to get a consistent match count.”

A Corvallis native, Whisenhunt was high school teammates at Crescent Valley with Daschle Lamer.

Years later, Oregon State is counting on both of them.

“We’re excited to have him,” says Pendleton of Lamer, a 2025 Pac-12 runner-up for Cal Poly before transferring this offseason.

“It’s been nice because when you have local kids there’s a lot of times that they want to kind of go and branch out and do their own thing.”

Lamer was one of those kids, following in the footsteps of several older brothers who left Corvallis to wrestle collegiately. But his current head coach never lost hope that Daschle would return home someday.

“With Dasch, we were like, ‘Hey, you’re the baby of the family. We know where you want to be. You know you want to stay with mom and dad,’” Pendleton said. 

“So, he had to go out and kind of spread his wings (at Cal Poly)…but at the end of the day we had a gut feeling that he was going to hit the portal and come home — and we’re very happy that he did.”

Currently 9-0 this season, the 25th-ranked 174-pounder offers some real upward mobility as OSU seeks to score points in March.

Rademacher Raring To Go

While the bottom of its lineup is important for Oregon State to improve upon its 2025 postseason performance — including a Pac-12 team title and 24th-place NCAA finish — its biggest guns are just as, if not even more critical.

As returning individual Pac-12 champs, both #10 Maximo Renteria (125) and #23 Nash Singleton (141) certainly fit the bill.

The two have started strong thus far, earning spots on the podium at CKLV, where Renteria finished a narrow second and Singleton knocked off #6 Zeth Romney before sliding to sixth.

But the clear leader of the pack is Justin Rademacher.

Ranked #5 in the country after a year spent in redshirt, the sophomore used a freestyle springboard to return as one of the nation’s best at 197 pounds.

“Wrestling is just wrestling, there’s no doubt about that,” said Pendleton of Rademacher’s freestyle success translating back onto the folkstyle scene.

“I think with freestyle, it eliminates sloppy wrestling that college kind of has.”

There was minimal sloppiness to be found in Rademacher’s game this past summer, when he dominated en route to a U20 World title at 97 kilograms — a result which backed up his bronze medal effort from 2024.

Regarding the environment created by Team USA — including training parters like Senior World champion Trent Hidlay — Rademacher almost couldn’t help but improve, according to his coach.

And upon his return to Corvallis, the jumps he’d made were obvious.

“Oh, you notice it. You notice it immediately,” Pendleton said. “I think one of the things that I noticed with Justin once he started being around Team USA is that the truly elite guys — the guys that are competing for World and Olympic titles — they are some of the most coachable human beings that you’ll ever be around.

“I can tell you, seeing a guy like (Jordan) Burroughs, who always, always searches out people to help him, to help him develop his craft. He’s never been a guy that’s been full of himself. And so, when you’re a young kid like Justin and you see a guy like Jordan Burroughs being coachable, that elevates you.

“And I think that was probably one of the biggest differences, is he just came back and you could tell his brain had been opened really wide.”

Currently 15-1 with 10 bonus-point victories, Rademacher’s lone defeat came in the CKLV semifinals, 4-3 to Iowa State’s Rocky Elam — a last-second, first-period takedown the difference in the match.

“In the third period he earned three stall calls and had the kid on his heels, (but) to beat the kid that’s #1 in the country, you can’t make mistakes — and Justin made one mistake in that match where he didn’t convert a takedown and that cost him.”

The Oregon State head coach notes that with Rademacher’s international successes, a target is now on his back. And part of the journey for the young 197-pounder is learning to overcome that target and the tactical efforts from his opponents that come along with it.

“I think that one of the things I really liked seeing after he lost at Cliff Keen was he learned that hey, he has to separate the score,” Pendleton said. “He can’t let people sit around with him for two, three minutes scoreless — because at the end of the day, that’s working into people’s game plan.”

On Deck

The Beavers’ next, and likely greatest test between now and the NCAA Championships arrives this Sunday in the form of #2 Ohio State — live on FloWrestling at 5 p.m. (ET).

A year after scoring a decisive dual victory in Columbus (OH), the Buckeyes visit Corvallis, where they’ll find an Oregon State bunch that’s no stranger to hosting elite foes at Gill Coliseum.

Last season, both Iowa and Oklahoma State trekked to the great northwest, with the former part of a matchup that drew the third-largest crowd in OSU program history (4,273).

“That’s how we’ve always structured our schedule,” Pendleton said. “We want to wrestle the best. Ohio State (was) ranked #1 in the country. We know they’re a tough program. We know that we’ve got to be ready to scrap.

“For our athletes, what it does is give them exposure to big-time wrestling.”

As for the OSU coaching staff, each match represents valuable data points to collect, leading to corrections and points of emphasis that’ll benefit the Beavers throughout the second half of the season.

“And then for the (athletic) department and the community — just having a good time, a great event where we come out and pour our time, effort and resources into promoting this.

“The attendance has been pretty good over the last couple years. And we’re hoping for that trend to continue.”