By CARLON SCOTT
The BYU wrestling team surprised a few Beavers Thursday night. The Cougars came in as underdogs and beat Oregon State by a tally of 19-17.
BYU coach Mark Schultz didn’t expect this outcome at all going in to the match. Because of several injuries, the team wasn’t even sure of who would wrestle until right before the meet got underway. The lineup that Schultz chose ended up rising to the occasion.
The Cougars fired out quickly, winning the first three matches. BYU sophomore Jose Enriquez wrestled a sound match from start to finish, posting an 8-4 victory.
BYU senior John Kelly overpowered Ryan Sugihara of OSU, pinning him a minute and a half into the second period. That pin turned out to be a major factor in the win. Kelly took the match 11-5 and put the Cougars up 9-0.
BYU sophomore Tom Meacham scored an impressive win, beating OSU freshmen Earl Hall 16-6. The win put BYU up 13-0.
Oregon State took the next two matches to make the score 13-6.
BYU sophomore Brett Gappmayer built up a lead in his match and then held off a late charge by OSU freshmen Luke Duffy. Gappmayer’s 7-5 win put the cougars ahead 16-6.
After OSU won the next match to make the overall score 16-9, the Cougars needed a big effort from one of the last three wrestlers to secure the victory.
BYU sophomore Jeremy Lott pushed the Cougars over the top with a gutsy performance. Lott was down 2-1 to OSU senior Sanders Freed with less than a minute remaining in the match. Freed was on top of Lott and looked to be in the driver’s seat for the win.
But with 35 seconds left Lott broke Freed’s hold and wheeled around on Freed to score a two point reversal. Lott held Freed down and burned off the remaining time to score the 3-2 win and put BYU up 19-9.
Lott said he learned the reversal move at home.
“It was something that I picked up from my Dad,” Lott said. “(Freed) just got off balance and I was able to throw it.”
Schultz said he was pleased with Lott’s performance.
“I was glad to finally see Jeremy show some signs of the potential he has,” Schultz said.
It was a team victory for the Cougar wrestlers, and Schultz echoed this after the meet.
“We couldn’t have done it if everybody didn’t do exactly the things they did,” Schultz said.
The Cougars head to Iowa today to wrestle Iowa State and Missouri in a dual meet at Aimes, Iowa.
