Oklahoma State Falls to No. 13 Minnesota, 18-12

STILLWATER – Two Oklahoma State wrestlers earned the highest-ranked wins of their careers, but a late rally fell short as No. 9 Oklahoma State's dropped its first dual of the season to No. 13 Minnesota, 18-12, on Sunday in Gallagher-Iba Arena.

With the dual starting at 165 pounds, OSU trailed 15-3 after six bouts, but charged back in the lower weight matches behind two upsets over Golden Gophers ranked in the top 10 by Carter Young and Kaden Gfeller.

At 141 pounds, Young took the mat to face No. 3 Jake Bergeland. In a scoreless first period, Young set the tone for the match getting deep on multiple shots. He opened up the score in the third period beginning with an escape from the down position and a takedown on his way to a 5-1 decision over Bergeland. Two matches later, Kaden Gfeller knocked off No. 2 Brayton Lee with a 2-0 decision marking the second top-10 win for OSU on the day.

Daton Fix and Dustin Plott each improved to 4-0 on the season with comfortable decisions over Golden Gophers.

"It's just a process, right," head coach John Smith said. "We've talked about development as we go through and the experiences that we've had. Even in this dual meet, it's like I said, I got a lot to work with. They exposed us a little bit. This is by far the best team we've wrestled and it's a good team. It gives us something. If we wrestled them in two weeks, hopefully I'd see a different level of performance. I'm not going to say we'd win, I just think we recognized a little bit real quickly that to win tough, hard matches, you've got to wrestle tough and hard."

The early deficit for the Cowboys came from a run of four consecutive losses from 184 pounds to 125 pounds as Travis Wittlake, Konner Doucet and Trevor Mastrogiovanni all suffered their first defeats of the season, while Luke Surber fell to 2-2 on the year at 197 pounds.

Wyatt Sheets battled in the opening bout of the match, but dropped a close 5-4 decision to No. 27 Andrew Sparks, while the Golden Gophers clinched the dual with a 3-1 decision at 149 pounds where No. 17 Michael Blockhus topped No. 18 Victor Voinovich.

The next dual for the Cowboys will be on Dec. 11 in Norman when they take on Oklahoma in the first of the two Phillips 66 Bedlam matches this season.

No. 13 Minnesota 18, No. 9 Oklahoma State 12
Dec. 4, 2022 I Gallagher-Iba Arena I Stillwater, Okla.
Attendance: 4,217

• 165: No. 27 Andrew Sparks (MINN) dec. No. 16 Wyatt Sheets (OSU), 5-4
• 174: No. 4 Dustin Plott (OSU) dec. No. 18 Bailee O'Reilly (MINN), 10-5
• 184: No. 13 Isaiah Salazar (MINN) dec. No. 11 Travis Wittlake (OSU), 4-0
• 197: Michial Foy (MINN) dec. No. 29 Luke Surber (OSU), 7-4
• HWT: Garrett Joles (MINN) dec. No. 16 Konner Doucet (OSU), TB-1 2-1
• 125: No. 4 Patrick McKee (MINN) dec. No. 7 Trevor Mastrogiovanni (OSU), 4-1
• 133: No. 2 Daton Fix (OSU) dec. Aaron Nagao (MINN), 10-3
• 141: No. 21 Carter Young (OSU) dec. No. 3 Jake Bergeland (MINN), 5-1
• 149: No. 17 Michael Blockhus (MINN) dec. No. 18 Victor Voinovich (OSU), 3-1
• 157: No. 10 Kaden Gfeller (OSU) dec. No. 2 Brayton Lee (MINN), 2-0