Beaver Matmen Fall To The Buckeyes: ‘There wasn’t a lot of pretty out there’
Justin Rademacher scored an 8-7 victory over Ohio State’s Luke Geog at 197 for Oregon State’s only victory in a 41-3 defeat to the No. 2-ranked Buckeyes (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)
Updated 1/6/2026 8:07 AM, 1/7/2026 1:42 AM
CORVALLIS — As Ohio State’s Dylan Fishback was rolling toward a 13-2 pounding of Oregon State’s T.J. McDonnell at 184 pounds Sunday, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” rang out over the public-address system.
Man, was that fitting. The Beavers were symbolically out there on OR 34, slugging along on the wrong side of the road.
The Buckeyes are ranked No. 2 nationally for a reason, and they flexed their muscles in a 41-3 beating that was more one-sided than any of Chris Pendleton’s teams have taken at Gill Coliseum in his six years as Oregon State’s head coach.
Most in the crowd of 4,860 understood that the 23rd-ranked Beavers were behind the eight-ball going against a perennial NCAA championship contender, a squad that features nine of 10 wrestlers ranked among the nation’s top 10 in their weight class. Six of them are ranked among the top four at their weight.
Little did the fans expect, however, that nine of the 10 Oregon State wrestlers wouldn’t score a single takedown against their opponents.
“There wasn’t a lot of pretty out there,” Pendleton told me afterward. “We are a much better team than we showed.”
The 10th Beaver, Justin Rademacher, registered a gutsy 8-7 overtime win over Luke Geog at 197 to finally give the partisans something to cheer about. That came in the day’s penultimate match, and the fans stood and gave the redshirt sophomore their vocal 100 percent in spurring him to victory.
“Those cheers definitely helped,” said Rademacher, who improved to 16-1 this season. “That was awesome.”
Rademacher, who won the U20 World championship in Bulgaria last summer, is No. 5 in the collegiate ranks, his only loss a 4-3 setback to No. 2-ranked Rocky Elam of Iowa State. Rademacher took down the 10th-ranked Geog — Oregon State’s only takedown of the day — in the first minute and piled up two minutes of riding time in the first period. The West Linn grad took a 5-1 lead (with riding time) early in the third period, but Geog (9-3) scored a takedown, then another to go in front 7-6. Rademacher escaped with only five seconds left in regulation time, and it was on to overtime.
Nobody scored in the one-minute extra session. Then it was on to two 30-second sessions. Rademacher escaped three seconds into the first one. Nobody scored in the second, and the win was Rademacher’s, if barely.
“I started good, then kind of crashed toward the end,” he told me. “I’ve been sick all week. I couldn’t keep my hand down the second half of the match. (Geog) was able to get into his attack. But I kept wrestling and took it to him at the end.”
“If he is going to win a national title, Justin has to learn how to handle lead management,” said Pendleton, a two-time NCAA champion during his wrestling career at Oklahoma State. “It has been a trend for him to dominate the first and second periods and then take his foot off the gas and let his opponent back in the match. (Geog) got an easy takedown and put himself back into the match when he shouldn’t have been in the match.
Coach Chris Pendleton, here with assistants Josh Rhoden and Cory Crooks, approaches Justin Rademacher during a timeout in his 197-pound win over Ohio State’s Luke Geog (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)
“But Justin dug in and did what he had to do to win, so I’m proud of him for that.”
Rademacher said he didn’t feel extra pressure from the lack of success his teammates had prior to his match.
“Wrestling is an individual sport,” he said. “We are a team, but you have to go out there and take control of your own match, no matter what.”
Rademacher’s teammates weren’t up to the challenge on this day. Ohio State’s best wrestler, senior Jesse Mendez, is a defending NCAA champion at 141, ranked No. 1 and as the second-best wrestler at any weight this season. Mendez improved to 11-0 by routing Oregon State’s Nash Singleton 17-6.
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Oregon State senior Matthew Olguin (12-4), ranked No. 22 at 165, got taken down early and was never really in it in a 7-3 loss to 13th-ranked Paddy Gallagher, and that was the closest Beaver loss of the day. Maximo Renteria (13-2), ranked No. 10 at 125, lost by technical fall 19-4 to No. 3 Nic Bouzakis to begin the meet. Daschle Lamer (13-2), ranked No. 21 at 174, got handled 13-4 by No. 4 Carson Kharchia. And on and on. Aside from Rademacher, the Beavers seemed tentative, a step behind, not up to the moment.
“I was very surprised,” Pendleton said. “That is not the (Oregon State) team we are used to seeing. We have to take a good hard look at ourselves. We have to knock the holiday rust off, regroup tomorrow and get right back to work.”
Part of the story Sunday, of course, was the excellence of the competition.
The Buckeyes “are very good,” Pendleton said. “They are an expensive team with NIL money, and they are good.”
The Beavers lost their best wrestler of a year ago, Ethan Stiles, to Ohio State after the season; the Buckeyes gave him $75,000 for NIL purposes. Stiles (9-3), a sophomore ranked No. 5 at 149 this season, dominated Oregon State’s Noah Tolentino (13-6, ranked No. 26), 9-0 on Sunday.
Oregon State forfeited the heavyweight match. Senior Charlie Hastriter suffered a knee injury last week and is done for the season. Freshman Khale McDonnell is the Beavers’ only other heavyweight, and coaches are intent on preserving his redshirt season. He can wrestle in two more meets this season before losing a year of eligibility. Coaches are working on adding a football player with wrestling experience to fill the breech the rest of the way.
Speaking of football, the day’s biggest excitement beyond the Rademacher-Geog match was the appearance of new Oregon State football coach JaMarcus Shephard. Wearing Beaver gear, he sat behind the Oregon State coaches on the wrestling stage and, after the third match, took the microphone and talked for about five minutes. More accurately, shouted. If he was auditioning for yell king, he got the job. As Shephard finished, he had fans stand up and led them in a “Go! Beavs!” chant. Not what you would normally expect from a major college football coach, but it seemed to be received pretty well.
Oregon State won’t see a team close to as good as Ohio State the rest of the season. The Beavers will compete in the Utah Valley Open next Sunday, followed by duals at Cal State Bakersfield, at home against Cal Poly and Arkansas Little Rock, at Wyoming and Arizona State and at home against North Dakota State. The Pac-12 Championships are scheduled for March 6 at San Luis Obispo, Calif. After that is the NCAA Championships March 19-21 at Cleveland. That’s what Rademacher is intent on peaking for.
“It has been a choppy season for me,” he said. “It hasn’t been perfect. I needed that loss (to Elam) to get some fire under me. It is a long season. Everything is just practice for nationals. (The loss) is adding more to the fire, and then I will put it all together at the end of the year. That’s the plan.”
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