Big 12

Well-Traveled Cowboys Riding High To Start Season

Well-Traveled Cowboys Riding High To Start Season

Oklahoma State has dominated its seven dual opponents this season by a combined 240-23 margin. Are the Cowboys entering the national title conversation?

Dec 22, 2021 by Roger Moore
Well-Traveled Cowboys Riding High To Start Season
Being able to peak, physically and mentally, for one week in March requires any number of methods. Most will agree, winning in December is not the same as March. In other words, it’s not how you start a collegiate wrestling season but how you finish.

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Being able to peak, physically and mentally, for one week in March requires any number of methods. Most will agree, winning in December is not the same as March. In other words, it’s not how you start a collegiate wrestling season but how you finish. 

Through seven duals this season, Oklahoma State coach John Smith and staff have put a physically-fit team on the mat. A lopsided 240-23 margin on the scoreboard, including shutouts of Drexel, Air Force, and Utah Valley, might make some question the level of competition. But an early-November victory over #11 Minnesota and a 30-3 pasting of rival Oklahoma the second week of December draw the most attention. 

“With these sixth-year-seniors out there, we are behind,” Smith said of the extra veteran makeup of many squads this season. “It is going to be one of the toughest NCAA tournaments we’ve seen, so I think there has been a sense of urgency with our team and needing to get better. When you are projected to have four guys finish as All-Americans that doesn’t sit well around here, so we knew we had to get better. Still do.  

“Is our conditioning level better? I think it is because we knew that having six of our first seven duals on the road and just being ready, physically, was important for this team. We are building some confidence, but there is still work to do.” 

“I think part of it is that everyone is excited to be back and having a regular season,” undefeated 133-pounder Daton Fix said. “Guys are working harder now, but the focus is still on being at our best in March. Everyone is motivated a little more because I think we are better than what some people might think. Is our conditioning better? I think it is, but we know we haven’t wrestled our best.” 

One among many who have appeared seven-minute-strong is 149-pounder Kaden Gfeller. After what he called “an embarrassing performance” against Stanford’s Jaden Abas in the season-opener, Gfeller has reeled off six-straight wins. Against Oklahoma, Gfeller got the better of 141-pound All-American Dom Demas, who appeared to have little in the gas tank midway through the bout. Gfeller knows that feeling all-too-well. 

“There’s not much you can do — try to breathe and go back to the drawing board,” Gfeller said. “I think our team has had a different intensity in practice this year, amped it up some.” 

Wyoming’s Jaron Jensen raced to a 4-0 lead, but Gfeller rallied to win 10-5. 

“After my first match, I wasn’t going to let it happen again,” Gfeller said. “My body feels as good as it has felt in two or three years. Against Wyoming … maybe a little surprised because all that time on a bus can have an effect on people and it didn’t with us. We were in better shape and it showed.” 

Oklahoma State has finished inside the top three in four of the last five NCAA Championships – no tournament was held in 2020 due to COVID-19. Smith-coached teams won four consecutive NCAA team titles from 2003-2006, and despite not reaching the dominance of the mid-twentieth-century, only once since 2012 have the Cowboys finished outside the top 10 at an NCAA meet. They currently sit at #4 behind Iowa, Penn State, and Michigan.  

Plains and automobiles … no trains 

Smith has taken his teams on some epic road trips that have included blizzards, detours through mountain roads due to high winds, and marathon stretches of Midwest open roads. Oklahoma State finished off its first-semester schedule with another meandering excursion through parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. A Friday afternoon dual in Colorado Springs resulted in a 45-0 blanking of Air Force, followed by a trip north to Laramie – with some weather-related delays – and a 30-3 Friday night whipping of an under-the-radar Wyoming squad. The trip concluded with a Monday dual in Orem, Utah, against a freshman-laden Utah Valley squad. The Cowboys routed the Wolverines, 37-0, and completed the trip with 29 wins in 30 individual bouts and a combined 112-3 dual score. 

“You create an environment that is not real comfortable for them because you want them to perform when things aren’t comfortable,” Smith said. “Teams that have success at the national tournament experience that during the regular season. We had a good effort (at Wyoming). A lot of positive things from that match. Wyoming might be the best team we’ve wrestled. They are going to have a lot of success this year. For us, energy-wise, ignoring where you are at, wrestling at 7,200 feet, all those things in a hostile environment, those are the types of things that make you uncomfortable and we wrestled well in a tough place.” 

“We didn’t talk too much after the Wyoming match because we were hurrying to get back in the vans to get back to Denver,” Fix said. “We did wrestle hard against Wyoming; everyone competed for seven minutes in that dual. (Wyoming) came to Stillwater last year and had more champions in the Cowboy Challenge, so we wanted to show them something.” 

Utah Valley was without All-Americans Taylor LaMont (125) and Demetrius Romero (165), but the Wolverines’ rookie 133-pounder Haiden Drury made a good account of himself against Fix in an 8-3 loss. 

Oklahoma State opens the second semester with trips to Little Rock and Morgantown, W.V. (West Virginia and Columbia) before hosting Lehigh (Jan. 23) and Iowa State (Jan. 29). 

The Ferrari Factor 

The Big 12 Conference gave Oklahoma State and its Bedlam rival a “public reprimand” for a physical exchange between 197-pounder AJ Ferrari and Oklahoma heavyweight Josh Heindselman following the Cowboys’ 31-3 win in Norman (Dec. 12). A previous “history” existed between the two, thus leading to words, a shove, a double-leg takedown, and a punch or two, and a public reprimand and no suspensions. 

Ferrari (7-0), the reigning NCAA champion, is not shy about expressing himself on and off the mat and has sparked an Oklahoma State campus-wide selfie-flexing student body. On the mat, the Texan has wins over Oklahoma’s eighth-ranked Jake Woodley and Wyoming’s sixth-ranked Stephen Buchanon and is part of a Big 12 weight class that also includes Missouri’s fourth-ranked Rocky Elam.  

Healthy And Happy 

Sophomore 174-pounder Dustin Plott battled through injuries last season and went 1-2 at his first NCAA tournament. Through seven duals in 2021-22, the two-time state high school state champion from Tuttle (Ok.) High is unbeaten with wins over Oklahoma’s Anthony Mantanona and Wyoming’s Hayden Hastings. 

“Last year was a bit frustrating, not being 100 percent at the end,” Plott said. “But I feel good physically this year and haven’t had to think about it. Last year was such a learning experience for me. Having been through a year of this, making that transition to college, I’m more comfortable now.” 

Plott is one of four unbeaten Cowboy starters: Trevor Mastrogiovanni (125, 7-0), Fix, and Ferrari. Senior 184-pounder Dakota Geer took his first loss, an overtime setback to Wyoming’s Tate Samuelson in the dual at Laramie.  

Scuffle Dilemma  

Oklahoma State made its first appearance at the Southern Scuffle in 2013 and won the 2019 and 2020 titles. The early-January event has seen the likes of Minnesota, Cornell, Missouri, and Penn State annually provide a solid kickoff to the second semester, but the late December Journeymen Collegiate Wrestling Duals in Niceville, Florida, might take a bite out of participation in Chattanooga for the Scuffle this and in coming seasons. Smith sent a small contingent to the Reno Tournament of Champions (Dec. 19) and will send wrestlers to Chattanooga. That group will most likely not include starters. 

“Right now, with everything going on, we have to focus on the health of our student-athletes,” Smith said. “It may be a case where that decision is made for us.”