Cal Poly Wrestling lost its opening Pac-12 dual of the season against No. 17 Stanford on Friday, Jan. 17 inside Mott Athletics Center. The final score of the dual was 22-13. Despite the loss, the Mustangs (2-4, 0-1 Pac-12) were within two points of the Cardinal (5-1, 1-0 Pac-12) with just two bouts left in the meet.
“I thought our fight was there,” head coach Jon Sioredas said. “We wrestled really, really hard and made a couple mistakes. There was a couple close matches that could have gone either way.”
Four Cal Poly wrestlers emerged victorious over their Stanford opponents: sophomore 141-pounder Wyatt Cornelison, senior 149-pounder Joshy Cortez, freshman 184-pounder Trent Tracy and nationally-ranked senior 197-pounder Tom Lane.
Lane, who is ranked No. 8 in the country, faced off against Seamus O’Malley in the third bout of the dual. Lane was scheduled to face No. 7 Nathan Traxler, but Traxler was replaced due to injury.
Despite suffering a takedown early in the first period, Lane escaped the takedown later that period. He secured a takedown of his own in the second period to take a 3-2 lead and added riding time for a decision victory at 4-2. Lane improves to 12-3 on the season as a result of this victory.
“I knew I was going to get the takedown at one point,” Lane said after the dual. “I didn’t think it was that close, but the score was close and I just got to fix a few things up.”
At the 184-pound weight class, freshman Trent Tracy won 8-0 via major decision against Nick Addinson. All points in the bout were secured in the first period of the match. Two nearfalls in the final 30 seconds of the first period, worth 4 and 2 points respectively, gave Tracy enough points for a major decision after getting a takedown earlier in the period.
In the dual’s seventh match, Cornelison and Luciano Arroyo went into overtime after finishing level at 3-3. Just seconds into the overtime period, Cornelison made the match-ending takedown that saw his teammates jump in a frenzy at the 5-3 result.
“When the whistle blew for the overtime, I kind of looked at him and I could tell he was pretty tired,” Cornelison said of his overtime victory. “So I decided I would give it one good hard push and I think I could secure the takedown.”
The Mustangs’ last victory of the meet came in the eighth match through Cortez’s 3-1 decision over Dawson Sihavong. Cortez’s second-period escape and takedown was met with a third-period escape from Sihavong, but the Cal Poly wrestler held on for the victory.
In other bouts, sophomore 174-pounder Nathan Tausch lost in an 8-5 decision against Jared Hill. In the fourth match, Stanford’s Haydn Maley defeated sophomore Sam Aguilar in the 285-pound bout via a 10-2 major decision.
The meet’s lone technical fall came in the 125-pound class, as sophomore Benny Martinez lost 15-0 to Jackson DiSario after seven minutes. DiSanio scored 10 points in the first period alone, with two nearfalls worth four points each and a two-point takedown.
Sophomore 157-pounder Brawley Lamer lost in a 7-1 decision against Tyler Eischens, and redshirt freshman 165-pounder Bernie Truax lost a 16-2 major decision against Shane Griffith to end the bout.
Wrestling’s next dual is Thursday, Jan. 23 against California Baptist in Riverside. Cal Poly’s first bout against the Lancers is set for 7 p.m.
“To be good at wrestling, you have to have a short memory,” Lane said. “If you’ve lost a match, you have Thursday to shake it off. If you’ve won, who cares? On to the next one. That’s how wrestling works.”