After a month away from their home on the floor of McArthur Court, the Ducks (5-4 overall, 4-0 Pacific-10 Conference) returned Friday to wrestle Stanford and California-Davis, coming away with two big conference wins.
Senior Casey Hunt, wrestling at 141, had the day’s top performance, managing to pin both of his opponents in the Ducks’ 32-6 win over Stanford and their 28-9 win over UC Davis.
Against Stanford’s Brendon Fox, Hunt had a 4-1 lead on two takedowns before pinning Fox at the 2:23 mark in the first period.
Friday evening, Hunt battled Aggie Cris Brines and ended the first period with both wrestlers still scoreless. In the second period, Brines started down. Hunt held him and got the pin after 1:23.
“He’s one of those kids that is dangerous, and he likes to pin people,” head coach Chuck Kearney said.
Freshman Tony Rolen, who started the day with a 1-3 record, won both his matches at 184 in the third period, improving to 3-3. In a 5-2 decision over Stanford’s Harold Penson, Rolen earned all of his points in the third period.
Against Aggie Ronnie Silva, Rolen had a takedown halfway through the first period with Silva managing an escape. Starting the third period down, Silva had a reversal and Rolen earned an escape to tie the score at three with just more than one minute left.
Looking like it would go into overtime, Rolen pulled out the
victory in the last five seconds with a takedown and a near fall to win 7-3.
“That’s all the coach is asking me,” Rolen said. “Just compete and do my best. I just got into the zone of wrestling.”
Improving to 10-4 on the season, senior Tony Overstake picked up two four-point major decisions at 149 for the Ducks. Overstake dominated the match against Scott Polley of Stanford — scoring five takedowns, one reversal and earning a point for riding time — while allowing only four escape points for Polley.
Overstake dominated his second match also, managing seven takedowns and earning one escape, two points for stalling penalties against UC Davis’ Kevin Jones, and one point for superior riding time.
Sophomore Martin Mitchell bounced back from a 10-5 defeat against Stanford to pin his Aggie opponent at the 2:47 mark in the first period. More than half of Mitchell’s wins this season have come by pinning his opponent.
“It was really important for me to bounce back and have a good match this evening,” Mitchell said.
Shane Webster, the sophomore ranked No. 8 in the 174 weight class, had a four-point major decision against his Stanford opponent — scoring eight takedowns, one near fall, one escape and a point for riding time. Against UC Davis, Webster and his opponent were tied at one when Webster got a takedown with 25 seconds left to win 3-1. Webster improved to 18-2 on the season.
Redshirt sophomore Luke Larwin at 165 and sophomore Elias Soto at 197 both won their two matches of the evening.
“Our focus from now to the conference tournament is going to be on us and wrestling with emotion,” Kearney said. “We want to go in (to Oklahoma) and be a team that wrestles with everything to gain.”
Oregon travels to national powerhouses No. 9 Oklahoma and No. 1 Oklahoma State this weekend.