Sudden victories doom CSUB wrestling against Cal Poly
Everything was shaping up perfectly for Cal State Bakersfield with two weight classes to go Friday night.
Trailing 16-12, the Roadrunners were set to close the match at 133 and 141 pounds, with a pair of their best wrestlers, No. 21 Chance Rich and Angelo Martinoni, against Cal Poly’s Ethan Rotondo and Lawrence Saenz.
One decision each would give CSUB the win, and Rotondo entered the match with a 5-11 record and seven losses in his last eight appearances, while Saenz came in at 5-7.
But both Mustang wrestlers flipped the script, waiting out passive starts from their Roadrunner opponents and claiming sudden-victory takedowns, giving 28th-ranked Cal Poly a 22-12 win at the Icardo Center.
“I think that we just need to get to our offense,” CSUB coach Luke Smith said. “I think if we open up our offense, we win those two matches. We were too reactionary, and ... that’s not our style of wrestling. We wrestle guys when we’re pushing the pace.”
Rich found himself on the defensive early against Rotondo, having to force his way out of bounds at a precarious moment with 36 seconds left in the first period. The opponents managed one escape each before heading to overtime, where Rich got ahold of Rotondo’s right leg but ended up simply forcing a stalemate.
Out of the stalemate, Rotondo came out strong immediately and nearly took Rich down, and the Mustangs even challenged the result to no avail, but it didn’t matter as he got the decisive two points with 16 seconds remaining, sealing the overall victory for Cal Poly at 19-12.
The Martinoni-Saenz match proceeded similarly until Saenz used a reversal to go up 3-0, but Martinoni forced a tie with an escape, a penalty on Saenz for grabbing his singlet and a riding-time point. Martinoni had all the momentum, and almost took down Saenz, but instead saw himself on the receiving end early in overtime.
Making matters worse, Smith said afterward that Martinoni got his leg caught and popped his knee and will likely miss Sunday’s match against Little Rock. (Rich was already banged up entering Friday night.)
The late slide canceled out an impressive upset by Josh Brown at 149 in the opening matchup.
Brown entered the night with five straight wins, including a major decision against Oregon State last Sunday for his team’s lone victory. This time, Brown got taken down immediately by No. 17 Dom Demas, an Oklahoma transfer, but went on the offensive for an escape, takedown and near fall, leading 6-5 by the end of the first period.
After the wrestlers traded escapes, Brown got a stalling warning late in the third period, made his way out of bounds with 32 seconds left, then wriggled out of a strong attack from Demas to seal a 7-6 victory.
CSUB’s other wins came from a trio of decisions: Albert Urias over Brawley Lamer at 174, 7-3; Mateo Morales over Wesley Wilson at 197, 12-7; and Eddie Flores over Koda Holeman at 125, 5-3.
“Josh started off the year overthinking things, and wrestled reactionary,” Smith said. “Now Josh has been just competing. He just competes hard. Same thing with Albert.
“The guys who won today are the guys who went out there and fought for seven minutes, and pushed their offense on the other guys.”
Two more Roadrunners squandered third-period leads. At 157, Brock Rogers took down Luka Wick with four seconds left in the second period but an escape, a stalling penalty and a final takedown with 15 seconds remaining in the match sealed his defeat.
Jacob Hansen had an even more severe downturn at 184, entering the third up 4-2 before being outscored 9-2 by Bakersfield native Jarad Priest, including six straight points in just over a minute to close out the matchup.
Cal Poly completed its total with a 13-2 major decision for No. 31 Legend Lamer over Braden Smelser at 165 and a pin for Trevor Tinker on Jake Andrews at 285 that dealt a big blow to CSUB’s hopes.
The Roadrunners fell to 1-7 in duals (0-2 Pac-12) and have yet to win at 157, 165 or 285 in a dual meet this season.
They will get another chance Sunday when they host Little Rock, in what was originally supposed to be the outdoor “Feud on the Field” but was moved indoors due to the possibility of rain.
“You’re at the NCAA Tournament, you might have a tough loss but you gotta pick yourself back up if you wanna be an All-American and battle back and win that next match, and that’s what we gotta focus on,” Smith said. “We lost a tough one and it hurts today, but we have a few more opportunities ahead of us. We need to learn from today, make adjustments, keep getting better.”