By Scott Moore
The Norman Transcript
January 26, 2008 01:27 am
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Oklahoma coach Jack Spates preaches toughness to his wrestlers.
“Coming to wrestle” and “coming to battle” are two of Spates’ favorites catchphrases.
Friday at Howard McCasland, the Sooners’ first three wrestlers didn’t necessarily come to battle No. 9 Iowa State. After that, the Sooners sent wrestler after wrestler out to the mat, only to see each one come back defeated.
It wasn’t until the ninth match the Sooners experienced a victory, yet by then the dual had long been decided. The Cyclones routed the 18th-ranked Sooners 31-3.
It was OU’s worst loss since a 38-3 pasting at the hands of Oklahoma State in 2003. The Sooners hadn’t given up 30 points since losing to Iowa State 30-6 in 2005.
“We knew that this was going to be a very, very tough dual,” Spates said. “Did I think we were going to lose all those matches? Absolutely not. It was very frustrating.”
OU fell to 11-3 overall and 0-2 in the Big 12. Iowa State improved to 12-3 and 1-0. The Sooners have lost eight straight duals to conference opponents going back to the 2005-’06 season.
OU lost the first eight weights, but it was the way it lost the first three that irked Spates. Joey Fio fell to No. 17 Tyler Clark 9-0 at 125, Johnny Starzyk was pinned by No. 7 Nick Fanthorpe at 133 and No. 14 Zack Bailey lost to No. 20 Nick Gallick 10-3 at 141.
The Cyclones were the aggressors in each bout.
“You have guys on the mat looking over and shaking their heads,” Spates said. “Hey, I don’t care if you don’t know what to do. Fight. Battle. We just didn’t do that early on. But after that, we turned it around. There were a lot of great matches.”
The Sooners kept losing, but wrestled well enough to be competitive.
No. 5 Joel Flaggert kept it from being a shutout by beating David Bertolino 3-2 at 197.
“I was hard on our first three guys tonight. Real hard,” Spates said. “I wasn’t hard on anybody after that because they came to wrestle. They battled. We didn’t seal the deal in any of those matches, so give (Iowa State) credit for getting it done.”
Two of the better performances were Chad Terry at 157 and Nathan Fernandez at heavyweight. Terry, ranked 20th, went up against No. 6 Cyler Sanderson and lost 8-3. Terry got the crowd on its feet by being the aggressor in the first period.
At heavyweight, OU’s unranked Fernandez lost to No. 5 David Zabriskie 6-5.
The marquee match of the night also went to Iowa State. No. 1 Jake Varner defeated No. 7 Josh Weitzel 5-1. Both wrestlers were unbeaten entering the bout.
Still, the close losses are just that: losses. The Sooners aren’t going to take much solace in most of their wrestlers wrestling hard, especially when losing a dual by 28 points.
“They were the ones scoring at the end and making it happen,” Spates said. “Bottom line is we got out-toughed, out-conditioned and out-coached.”
The Sooners have plenty of time to rebound. Five duals remain, beginning with a home date against Arizona State Friday.
“But the bottom line is, I think this may be good for us,” Spates said. “(Assistant coach) Jeremy (Spates) told those guys, ‘Go tell your girlfriends to go home, and go home and sulk.’ And that’s what we’re all going to do. We need to wear this one heavily. You can get out-wrestled, but to get out-toughed and out-pushed, that’s not good.”
Scott Moore
366-3535
sports@normantranscript.com
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