Oklahoma State Freshman to Be Heavyweight Wins Gold at U.S. Open Wrestling

LAS VEGAS – Oklahoma State wrestling signee Christian Carroll had a dominant showing en route to a U20 freestyle title at the 2023 UWW U20 National Championships in Las Vegas, Nevada this weekend.

The No. 1 pound-for-pound prospect in the country entered the tournament as the six seed at 125 kg, but proved to be the best in the bracket by a wide margin. In six matches, he posted five technical falls and outscored his opponents by a combined score of 61-7.

The future Cowboy held each of his first three opponents scoreless in first-period technical falls with the longest match lasting just 1:25. His closest bout of the tournament came in the quarterfinals where he defeated North Dakota State's Juan Mora, 6-4. He advanced to the championship match with a 12-1 tech fall over No. 10 seed Carter Neves in Saturday's semifinal round.

His opponent in the first-place bout was No. 9 seed Bradley Hill from Iowa. After a first-period exchange that resulted in a 2-2 score, Carroll took control from there and proceed to outscore Hill, 11-0, to clinch the title with a 13-2 tech fall.

With the win, Carroll earned an automatic spot in the best-of-three finals at the U20 World Team Trials in June. He will face the winner of the trials for a spot on the U20 U.S. World Team.

Two of Carroll's fellow signees, Cael Hughes (61 kg) and Brayden Thompson (86 kg) also earned placements in the U20 freestyle division. Thompson advanced to the semifinals of the championship bracket before dropping a 3-1 decision to No. 3 seed Max McEnelly. He would bounce back on Sunday with two victories to claim a third-place finish. Hughes made it to the quarterfinals before being upset by Jace Rhodes and ended the tournament with an eighth-place at 61 kg.\

With their placements at the tournament, both Hughes and Thompson qualified for the U20 World Team Trials Event in June.

Of note, Daton Fix was registered to compete at 61 kg in the senior men's freestyle division, but was unable to wrestle due to illness. Having already qualified for the World Team Trials challenge tournament, Fix will still have the opportunity to claim a spot in Final X with a win at the event in May.