A half hour before Oregon’s match against No. 21 Cal State-Bakersfield, the Roadrunners were nowhere to be found.
It was the same thing with 20 minutes left before the scheduled start of the match. With about 12 minutes to spare, the team bus pulled up and the wrestlers entered McArthur Court.
They were offered an opportunity by Oregon coaches to wait and allow their players to warm-up, but when a Cal State-Bakersfield coach asked his first wrestler if he needed time to warm up, it was as if the coach had insulted him.
“(The coach) asked the 157-pound kid, ‘How much warm-up do you need? When do you want to start?’” said Oregon head coach Chuck Kearney. “He still has his tennis shoes on and says ‘I wanna go now.’ That kind of attitude is why they were successful (Sunday).”

A pin isn’t enough
Everyone loves to win, especially in dramatic fashion.
For instance, the pinning of an opponent.
But for Jason Harless pinning his opponent, as he did with eight seconds remaining in the first round of his match Sunday, wasn’t necessarily the best thing.
Harless was seen moments after his victory running around the middle level of Mac Court. Harless said that was because he wanted to keep an eye on his weight, and, well, his competition didn’t give him much of a workout.
“I’m trying to keep weight down,” Harless said. “I would have liked to have (wrestled) longer.”
He also said he wanted to try some new things he has been working on, but didn’t get a chance to do that in the match.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda
Kearney said if some of his guys who were expected to win their respective matches this weekend would have, Oregon could have come out with two victories.
“If we win the 125-pound class, and the 157-pound class, we win those matches,” Kearney said. “Those are matches we have won in the past.”
“Three of those we were supposed to win (against Cal State-Bakersfield). And with 157, 165, 174 and 197-pound classes we assured ourselves defeat just by the way we stepped onto the mat. And when you do that, how can you be surprised at the results? Those guys are better than that, the 157, 165, 174-pound kids have beaten their guys before.”

Meet the parents
Dustin Fisher was able to capture his third victory of the year in front of someone special. His mom.
It was the first time Fisher’s mom had the chance to come down to seem him wrestle since he arrived in Eugene two years ago.
“We are real pleased with him,” Kearney said. “The hardest thing in wrestling is to work as hard as everyone else and pay a big price and try to put it all together and not have success that should come with it. My hat goes off to him. The courage it takes every time to step out there … and put out that kind of effort. It was a good win for him.”
Fisher won his match in the 184-pound weight class.