The Mustangs took four wrestlers to the NCAA Championships in Brendan Buckley’s first year as head coach. Boris Novachkov posted a 27-3 record, but a loss in the finals of the Pac-12 Championships dropped him to the sixth seed going into the tournament held in St. Louis.
DesRoches won the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational and the Reno Tournament of Champions in December and didn’t lose until Jan. 15 against Nick Amuchastegui.
Both DesRoches and Novachkov reached 100 wins in their Mustang career early in the season.
Redshirt freshman Dominic Kastl was the only Mustang to capture a Pac-12 title. He won the crown at 165-pounds. Kastl defeated Bret Baumbach of Stanford 8-1 in the finals after winning a one-point match against Oregon State’s Cody Weishoff in the semifinals.
Senior Ryan Smith rounded out the group Cal Poly sent to St. Louis as he earned an automatic bid to the championships with a third place finish in the Pac-12. He lost to Brent Chriswell in the semifinals before pinning his next opponent in the wrestleback finals.
The team finished the season with a 5-6 record in dual meets and placed fifth out of six schools in the Pac-12 Championships.
In their final home match, Cal Poly raced past Arizona State, earning a 26-11 victory with wins by all four seniors (DesRoches, Novachkov, Smith and Kelan Bragg).
The Mustangs return a young squad in 2012-13, including Kastl and 125-pound wrestler Britain Longmire.