STILLWATER – On the road again is a good theme for head coach John Smith and Oklahoma State wrestling because this Sunday the team plus extras hits the road for the first time this season going to Little Rock to take on the Trojans and SIU-Edwardsville. The No. 4 Cowboys will square off with the Cougars on Sunday, Jan. 17 at 12:55 p.m. before its dual with Little Rock at 4 p.m.
On the road again will be the theme for the rest of January as the Pokes grapplers have duals at Northenr Colorado, Air Force, Northern Iowa, Iowa State, and Oklahoma before returning to Gallagher-Iba Arena on the night of Feb. 7 to wrestler Little Rock in Stillwater.
It will be the first time for the Cowboys at the Jack Stephens Center at UALR and former Oklahoma State wrestler Neil Erisman is the head coach of the building Trojans program. The duals will be on radio with the Cowboy Network and Rex Holt and will be streamed on LRtrojans.com.
Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
Freshman AJ Ferrari dominated his match in the Oregon State dual for a major decision.
A pair of wins like the Cowboys had last weekend at home against Chattanooga and Oregon State and John Smith’s career head coaching record will go to 443-65-6, moving him into third place in all-time Division 1 coaching wins. Last Sunday’s wins moved Smith into fourth all-time.
Smith said the Cowboys will take the expected starting line-up and a number of wrestlers at other weights. An extra mat will be set up and they will wrestle extra matches throughout the afternoon.
“It allows our student athletes to wrestle and get in matches since there are any tournaments,” Smith added. “We’ll clean it up a little and do a better job next time but you have to remember that we’ve never seen anything like that in Gallagher-Iba Arena or Gallagher Hall. We’ll take 21 wrestlers this weekend, maybe more. We will take as many guys as we have that are ready to wrestle. This is the way we can get in matches.”
Smith said he does expect Anthony Montalvo to travel and wrestle at likely 184-pounds, maybe 174. Meanwhile, Wyatt Sheets, nationally-ranked at 157-pounds definitely won’t go and they will take it slow with him.
“It’s good for us, it’s an opportunity for us,” Smith said. “We were supposed to have a conference team come in this week, and it fell through about a month ago, and unfortunately we were sitting there without competition this week, and good thing we have Little Rock – we needed it.”
Smith has helped his former wrestler Neil Erisman in getting the program started at Little Rock. Smith has always been a champion of working to grow the sport.
As far as growing his team, Smith had many wrestlers out there that were unranked including his three freshman starters in Trevor Mastogiovanni, Dustin Plott, and A.J. Ferarri.
In this week’s polls, Oklahoma State’s lineup features nine wrestlers listed in various rankings. Suspended sophomore 133-pounder Daton Fix is the consensus No. 1 wrestler at his weight and is the highest ranked Cowboy. Not far behind Fix are teammates and returning Big 12 individual champions Boo Lewallen and Travis Wittlake. Lewallen (149) ranks No. 4 among all of the polls, while Wittlake (165) is No. 4 in all but one, a No. 5 ranking from FloWrestling. Three freshman appeared in the rankings for the first time in their young careers. Mastrogiovanni (125), Plott (174) and Ferrari (197) combined to go 6-0 with four bonus-point wins in the quad meet against Chattanooga and Oregon State. Mastrogiovanni and Ferrari are ranked No. 18 and Plott is No. 20.
Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
Boo Lewallen was all over the place in his match last Sunday vs. Oregon State.
Also appearing across all four rankings is senior Kaid Brock who is looking to get back to his All-America form at 141 pounds after an injury kept him from wrestling last season for the Cowboys. Brock is ranked in the top-10 in each of the rankings and as high as No. 6 by The Open Mat. After missing last week’s duals due to injury, Wyatt Sheets remains in the top-10 in three of the four polls at 157 pounds. Senior Dakota Geer is ranked as high as No. 7 and as low as No. 10 at 184 pounds where he was an All-American in 2019 after wrestling at 197 pounds last season. Geer put together a 2-0 day the last time out for OSU, picking up his first ranked win of the season with a 12-3 major decision over No. 14 Matthew Waddell of Chattanooga.
