Improvement.
That’s a word Oregon can use after its latest road trip.
Oregon entered the weekend with a match against UC-Davis on Friday, a day after it lost to Stanford for the first time in nine years.
The Ducks lost to the Aggies 24-18, which was an improvement from the 31-6 loss to Stanford the Ducks endured the night before.
The loss dropped the Ducks to 1-7 overall and, more importantly, 0-3 in the Pacific-10 Conference.
“We wrestled better tonight,” head coach Chuck Kearney said. “We still have a lot of things to work on. We are asking a lot of our wrestlers to wrestle out of weight class because they are just overmatched and oversized.”
Oregon entered the match receiving a string of strong individual performances from Luke Larwin. That didn’t even seem to go right Friday night. Larwin lost 11-7 to Mike Font of UC-Davis in the 165-pound weight class.
Jake Leair won his third-straight dual match. Leair defeated Evan Hendrix 10-8 in the 197-pound class. Leair now stands at 6-9 overall and 3-5 in dual matches this season.
Jason Harless beat Cesar Correa, 6-1. Sophomore Chet McBee won in the 184-pound class, beating Frank Richmond 9-8, followed by freshman Cody Parker, who beat fellow heavyweight Michael Clarkston, 14-8.
After Parker’s match, the score stood at 9-8 with five matches to go.
Oregon stayed in Davis, Calif., after the dual meet with the Aggies, for the Aggie Open on Saturday.
The Ducks had five wrestlers place in the tournament. Larwin finished second in the 165-pound class after a loss to Iowa’s Mark Perry, 8-1. Larwin finished the day 4-1 to improve his team-leading record to 21-8.
Leair followed up his strong performance from the day before to finish third in his respective 197-pound class with a 4-1 finish in the tournament. Harless started the tournament well, going 3-0, but had to forfeit his last two matches. He finished sixth.
“We got some wins early on, wrestled with some emotion and went on a roll and made some good improvements,” Kearney said. “We’re real pleased with what we saw and this will help up spring board through the rest of the season.”
Oregon also received a promising showing from sophomore Jacob Boyles, who placed third on the day with a 4-1 record.
The Ducks will finally get to return home after more than a month on the road. Oregon will host Fresno State this Friday, followed by a match with Cal State-Bakersfield on Jan. 25.