Senior Justin Pearch earned a spot in wrestling’s National Championship Tournament, March 15-17 in Detroit, Mich., by placing second in the 141-pound weight class at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, held Saturday and Sunday in the Icardo Center at Cal State Bakersfield.
His only loss of the tournament came by way of a 4-1 decision in the championship round against UC Davis’ Derek Moore. Moore was the tournament’s No. 1 seed at 141 pounds and finished the regular season ranked third nationally.
“Justin wrestled well tonight and he got a preview of what an NCAA tournament-caliber opponent is like,” coach Chuck Kearney said in an Oregon release. “He will have to work hard to prepare for the grind that the national tournament is, but he has a good shot of going deep into it.”
Freshman Brysen French placed fourth at 184 pounds and made a strong case for one of the conference’s eight wild-card selections to the national tournament. He went 3-2 on the weekend, with one loss to No. 1 seed Greg Gifford of Arizona State and the other to Oregon State’s Kyle Bressler. French lost twice to Bressler this season by a total of four points but got behind early in Sunday’s third-place match and went on to lose by major decision, 9-0. French was overlooked when the coaches voted in the conference’s eight wild-card selections Sunday night.
Freshman Ronnie Lee, who was wrestling for the first time in over a month, bounced back from a first-round loss to Stanford’s Luke Feist at 174 pounds to win three straight matches before losing to Feist again in the consolation semifinals. He finished the weekend with a dominating 12-1 victory over Cal Poly’s Nick Hernandez in the fifth-place match. The performance earned Lee alternate status for the national tournament. Should a 174-pound Pac-10 wrestler withdraw, Lee would replace them in Detroit.
Other medalists included senior Chris Dearmon, fifth at heavyweight; Joey McLaughlin, fifth at 149 pounds; and junior Joey Lucas, sixth at 133 pounds, completing a six-medal team performance for Oregon wrestling.
Oregon State won the tournament with a final score of 110 points. Oregon finished eighth in the ten-team field with 62 points, finishing ahead of Boise State and Portland State.