Concluding his collegiate wrestling career, Oregon senior Eugene Harris finished in fourth place and earned the status of an All-American at the NCAA Championships.
During the weekend of March 21-23, eight members of the wrestling squad traveled to Albany, N.Y., for the tournament. Ranked as the No. 18 team in the country heading into the nationals, the Ducks came way with a 24th-place team finish.
Harris, the No. 7 seed in the tournament, began with two straight wins that advanced him to the championship quarterfinals. There he faced No. 2 seed Matt Lackey of Illinois and could not come up with the upset win, snapping his streak of 19 consecutive wins.
After that loss, Harris won two straight in the consolation bracket, which placed him in the third place match against No. 3 seed Tyrone Lewis of Oklahoma State. During the regular season, Lewis handed Harris a 3-2 defeat on Dec. 16, one of Harris’s three losses during the regular season. Once again, Harris could not prevail, falling to Lewis 8-2, giving Harris a final season record of 33-5.
“I’m proud of Eugene and what he has done this year,” Oregon head coach Chuck Kearney said. “To have only five losses with the type of schedule we had is a testament to what kind of wrestler he is.”
Shaun Williams, seeded No. 8, was the other Oregon wrestler seeded in the national tournament. Leading North Carolina’s Chris Rodrigues 8-5 with seven seconds remaining in the match, Williams was thrown to his back and eventually pinned with one tick remaining on the clock. A win would have assured Williams of a top-eight finish and All-American honors along with Harris.
Prior to his loss to Rodrigues, Williams was defeated 11-1 in the championship quarterfinals by the eventual national champion Steven Abas of Fresno State.
Oregon’s Tony Overstake (157 pounds) and Brian Watson (141) also advanced to the second day of the tournament but could not hang around long enough to earn top-eight honors.
Overstake earned Oregon’s most decisive win of the tournament by defeating Eastern Illinois’s Frank DeFillippis by a 17-1 (4:59) technical fall in his first match of the tournament. Overstake then lost to top-seeded Bryan Snyder of Nebraska, who lost in the finals to Minnesota’s Luke Becker.
Watson was pitted against No. 3 seed Sean Gray of Virginia Tech in the first round and lost 5-0. In the consolation bracket, Watson defeated Stanford’s Brad Metzler, 5-2, before losing to West Virginia’s Shane Cunanan, 3-2, early on the second day.
Living legend Cael Sanderson from Iowa State, who was named the tournament’s outstanding wrestler, completed his four-year undefeated run at the championships by winning his fourth national title. Sanderson’s record of 159-0 was capped by a 12-4 major decision over Lehigh’s Jon Trenge.