Beavers hope to defend Pac-12 title at Gill, but it will be a battle
Brandon Kaylor shoots for his second consecutive 125-pound title in the Pac-12 Championships Sunday at Gill Coliseum (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)
With perfect health, Oregon State would probably be favored to claim its second straight Pac-12 championship when the conference tournament rolls around Sunday at Gill Coliseum.
In early January, however, the Beavers lost their second-best wrestler — 174-pounder Travis Wittlake — to injury when he sustained leg and vertebrae fractures following a freak truck accident.
The senior transfer from Oklahoma State was 11-3 and ranked among the nation’s top 10 in his weight class when the accident occurred in Corvallis. He was working underneath his pickup truck when the jack gave way, the truck crushing his leg and body. It may be that Wittlake’s wrestling career is over, but the concern with his coaches has been for a full recovery in terms of physical health.
“Travis is getting around in a walking boot now and is getting his health back,” OSU assistant coach Nate Engel says. “He’ll make a full recovery and lead a normal life.”
A GoFundMe account set up to help Wittlake’s medical expenses, with a goal of $100,000, has raised more than $113,000.
“The support from the wrestling community and people here at Oregon State has been second to none,” says Chris Pendleton, in his fourth season as OSU’s head coach.
The loss of Wittlake, along with that of redshirt freshman 149-pounder Noah Tolentino early in the season to an ACL knee surgery, likely cost the Beavers dual meets in close losses to Arizona State (19-17) and Arkansas-Little Rock (20-17). It also impacts their chances to successfully defend their title in what could be a four-way battle with Stanford, ASU and Little Rock challenging the Beavers for supremacy.
All four teams are ranked among the nation’s top 25 as dual-meet squads — Arizona State at No. 15, Little Rock at No. 18, Stanford at No. 20 and Oregon State at No. 21.
“It emphasizes the strength of our conference,” Pendleton says. “The last two years, the thing has gone down to the wire.”
In 2021 and ’22, Pendleton’s first years on the job, Oregon State finished second behind Arizona State in the Pac-12 Championships. The second year, the Sun Devils won by a sliver, 115 points to 114 1/2. Last year, OSU took home five individual crowns and earned the team title with 123 1/2 points to finish ahead of Stanford (113 1/2), Cal Poly (112) and Arizona State (110 1/2).
Four of the Beavers’ individual champions returned this season: seniors Brandon Kaylor at 125 and Cleveland Belton at 141 and juniors Matthew Olguin at 165 and Trey Munoz at 184. All can be considered favorites to win again this year, though Olguin has moved up to 174 with the injury to Wittlake.
Pendleton will also send out three freshmen — including true freshman Justin Rademacher at 197 — and two largely untested sophomores on Sunday.
A look at each weight class, with Oregon State’s entrant, record and WrestleStat national ranking:
125: Brandon Kaylor, senior, 14-6. Ranking: 19.
Kaylor, the defending champion, has more career wins than any current Beaver and an 87-33 record over five seasons. Kaylor’s major competition should come from Arizona State’s Richard Figueroa (No. 16) Stanford’s Nico Provo (No. 23). Kaylor beat Provo 7-3 in a recent dual meet but was pinned by Little Rock’s Jeremiah Reno earlier in the season.
Pendleton: “Brandon has shown he can beat anybody. He just has to be the best guy this weekend.”
133: Gabe Whisenhunt, freshman, 9-8. Ranking: 32.
A four-time state 5A champion at Crescent Valley, Whisenhunt has had his moments this season. He has lost in duals to Cal Poly’s 10th-ranked Zeth Romney 7-2 and Arizona State’s Julian Chlebove 9-5.
Pendleton: “Gabe has been fantastic in a very tough weight class. He is a lot better than his record shows. He has done a good job keeping his mind straight and not letting the record affect him. He’s going to be very dangerous in the Pac-12s.”
141: Cleveland Belton, senior, 14-6. Ranking: 20.
Belton’s major competition should come from Arizona State’s Jess Vasquez (No. 24), who didn’t wrestle in the OSU-ASU dual.”
Pendleton: “Cleveland has had a good season, has been one of our most consistent performers. He’s not just settling. He wants to get to the next level.”
149: Nash Singleton, sophomore, 7-9. No ranking. The sophomore from Roseburg has filled in admirably for the injured Tolentino, but may be in over his head against Arizona State’s Kyle Parco (No. 1), Cal Poly’s Chance Lamer (No. 7) and Stanford’s Jaden Abas (No. 10). Singleton lost to Parco 9-3, to Lamer 13-3 and to Abas 14-3.
Engel: “He has wrestled in the toughest division and has some good wins. He’ll be ready for the Pac-12. He is a guy who has to drive 75 mph, but if he does he can win.”
157: Christopher Hamblin, sophomore, 0-1. No ranking. Senior Isaiah Crosby, who finished third in the Pac-12s a year ago, is no longer with the team; Pendleton declines to reveal why. Christopher Hamblin, a sophomore from Vancouver’s Mountain View High, made his first career start against Stanford, falling 14-5 to Stanford’s Daniel Cardenas. Arizona State’s Jacob Teemer (No. 4) and Cardenas (No. 8) are the favorites, with Little Rock’s Matt Bianchi (No. 33) a long shot.
Pendleton: “The biggest thing we’re looking for is for a guy to come out with a fearless attitude. We were impressed with what we saw from CJ against Cardenas, one of the top guys in the country.”
165: Kekana Fouret, junior, 8-6. No ranking. The favorites in this weight class are Little Rock’s Joseph Bianchi (No. 22) and Stanford’s Hunter Garvin (No. 24). Bianchi punished Fouret in a dual 10-0 but Fouret gave Garvin all he could handle in Garvin’s 6-5 win.
Pendleton: “We’ve been incredibly proud of the way Kekana has competed. He has shown what he can do. He has a legitimate chance if he wrestles to his capabilities.”
174: Matthew Olguin, junior, 12-5. Ranking: 21. A two-time Pac-12 champion at 165, Olguin moves up to probably the most competitive weight class including Stanford’s Tye Monteiro (No. 25), Cal Poly’s Adam Kemp (No. 27) and Little Rock’s Tyler Brennan (No. 30).
Junior Matthew Olguin, a two-time champion at 165, is the favorite at 174 Sunday at Gill (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)
Pendleton: “Matthew is wrestling at his true weight class now. He’s a smart wrestler and a good one. He’s a guy nobody wants to face.”
184: Trey Munoz, junior 16-3. Ranking: 3. Munoz, 66-12 in his OSU career is behind only Northern Iowa’s Parker Keckeisen and Oklahoma State’s Dustin Plott in the national rankings. A two-time Pac-12 champion who was sixth at last year’s NCAA Championships, Munoz beat Little Rock’s Triston Wills (No. 25) 11-8 in a dual.
Pendleton: “Trey is our workhorse. He can go with anybody in the country. He has aspirations of being a national champion. He’s shown he can do it.”
197: Justin Rademacher, freshman, 12-7. Ranking: 26. The true freshman from West Linn was Pac-12 Wrestler of the Week after pummeling Stanford’s Nick Stemmet (No. 19) 14-4 in a dual. Little Rock’s Stephen Little (No. 12) handled Rademacher 10-3 in a dual.
Pendleton: “The kid came onto campus weighing a buck 78 (178); now he’s a 200-pound behemoth. He is by far our most coachable kid. He knows how important the mental game is. He loves getting in his work. He’s coming on. He has a shot at winning the Pac-12 title.”
HEAVYWEIGHT: Boone McDermott, senior, 14-8. Ranking: 22. The transfer from Rutgers is in a tough weight class that includes ASU’s Cohlton Schultz (No. 4), Cal Poly’s Trevor Tinker (No. 24th) and Little Rock’s Josiah Hill (No. 26). In duals, McDermott was pinned by Tinker and lost to Schultz 5-2 and to Hill 4-1.
Pendleton: “Boone has had some head-scratching losses, but he has had a good year. He has the tools to get to the (Pac-12) finals, and then we will see what happens.”
Notes: Pendleton puts much emphasis on his team’s performance at the Pac-12s and NCAAs. “We have to be batting 1,000,” the OSU coach says. “We expect everybody to be at their best.” … Engel sees Gill as the Pac-12 site as an advantage for the Beavers. “Our guys will be at home, sleeping in their own beds, and will have the crowd behind them,” Engel says. … Oregon State has had three home dual meets this season, and one of them was staged in Hillsboro. That won’t be the case next season. Pendleton has scheduled duals with national powers Iowa and Oklahoma State along with North Carolina. Iowa finished the 2023-24 dual meet season ranked No. 2; Oklahoma State was No. 4. … with Arizona State and Stanford moving to the Big 12 and ACC, respectively, next season, the Pac-12 will have only four members in 2024-25 — Oregon State, Arkansas-Little Rock, Cal State Bakersfield and Cal Poly. The conference has been given a one-year automatic qualifier waiver, meaning its conference champion in each weight class advances to the NCAA Championships. What will happen to the conference? “We’re committed to keeping a conference on the West Coast,” Pendleton says. “Our wrestlers, our fans — everybody deserves that. For now, we have a grace period of one year, with the possibility of two years, to add teams. We’re waiting out some of the craziness of conference realignment. We will add teams at some point.”
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