For Beaver wrestlers, ‘Game On’ in 2025-26
Chris Pendleton’s Oregon State wrestling team will be shooting for its third Pac-12 championship in four seasons in 2026 (courtesy Cade Patton/OSU athletics)
CORVALLIS — On Nov. 2 at the one-day Princeton Invitational in New Jersey, Chris Pendleton begins his 16th season as a collegiate wrestling coach, his sixth as the head man at Oregon State.
The former two-time national champion at Oklahoma State ranks what he has seen thus far from his OSU wrestlers in the “best ever” category.
“By far, the favorite preseason in all my years of coaching,” Pendleton tells me in an interview at the OSU wrestling training facility.
There are several reasons, not the least of which was feedback from a number of his returning veterans.
“They are guys who have grown up in my system and know what we are doing, know what we are trying to accomplish,” says Pendleton, 43. “They threw a challenge at me. They said our preseason (last year) wasn’t as hard as in the past.”
That declaration gave Pendleton and assistants Josh Rhoden and Cory Crooks pause.
“Then we said, ‘Game on,’’ ” Pendleton says. “We have been grinding away. The response from the team has gotten me out of bed every morning super excited and ready to go.”
Oregon State lost associate head coach Nate Engel this summer to the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program in Colorado Springs. Pendleton elevated Rhoden to top assistant, made Crooks full-time and added ex-OSU All-Americans Trey Munoz and Brandon Kaylor to the staff.
In addition to his coaching duties, Munoz is a three-time Pac-12 champion with a career record of 84-18. Since practice began this summer, he has served as training partner for Justin Rademacher, the sophomore from West Linn who in August won the 97-kg (213 pounds) class at the U20 World Championships in Bulgaria.
While Rademacher’s teammates were competing in a wrestle-off at Gill Coliseum last Saturday, Rademacher was wrestling Munoz next door at the OSU training facility.
Sophomore Justin Rademacher is a U20 world champion at 97 kilograms (213 pounds) and a national championship contender in ’26 (courtesy Karl Maasdam/OSU athletics)
“An epic match,” Pendleton says. “Justin got Trey in overtime on a stalling call. It was an NCAA finals-type of match.”
While the loss of Engel is felt, Pendleton considers the addition of Munoz and Kaylor a plus.
“With Nate, Josh and myself — three coaches in our 40s — we were getting a little long in the tooth,” Pendleton says with a smile. “Now we have Cory, Trey and BK — three coaches in their mid-20s — who are on the mat bringing high energy into the room. The athletes are feeding off of that.”
The squad makeup is different this season, too, with the new NCAA roster limit of 30.
“We were carrying 44 or 45 guys last season, so initially I was bummed,” Pendleton says. “Anything new, you worry. Sometimes your wrestlers are projects, and you want to see what how they develop.
“But when you have 30 guys, the quality of the room goes up. That is the reality of it. You have a lot more time to build individual relationships. I have been enjoying this season. In the six years I have been here, this has been by far our best preseason.”
Part of that is an eight-man freshman class about which the OSU coaches are very optimistic. Three of them — Manny Salgate at 133, Joel Adams at 157 and Khale McDonnell at heavyweight — have a good chance to provide immediate help.
“It is a big and solid freshman group,” Pendleton says. “They are going through growing pains, but that is always the case. When we were recruiting them, we isolated wrestlers not just with elite talent but those who love to work, who really love the sport. These guys live wrestling. A lot of the young talent we have had in the last two years are teaching (the freshmen) how to walk the walk. I have been really impressed by that.”
The Beavers won the Pac-12 Tournament championship last March for the second time in three years. Senior Maximo Renteria (125), junior Nash Singleton (141) and sophomore TJ McDonnell (184) are returning Pac-12 champions. All won two matches at the NCAA Championships. Ethan Stiles, who finished sixth at the NCAA’s at 149 as a redshirt freshman, has transferred to Ohio State. A $75,000 NIL exchange sealed the deal, leaving Pendleton to do a slow burn. Behavioral issues as a true freshman at Nebraska had played a part in Stiles’ transfer to Oregon State.
“Ethan was a guy who needed a second chance, another opportunity,” Pendleton says. “Our coaches invested in him, turned the other cheek repeatedly, did everything we could to help make his life better. The moment he got an opportunity, he ran and took the bag.”
After acting up at a tournament in Las Vegas last December, Stiles was suspended from the team for several weeks. After he returned, he thrived.
“We rebuilt him,” Pendleton says. “For us as coaches, we did our job. We poured our heart and soul into him. You change the trajectory of the kid’s life, and then he makes the choice that we are not good enough for him anymore.”
Ironically, for a story on kerryeggers.com last March, Stiles told me this about his recruitment to Oregon State:
“I thought to myself, ‘What can the coaches offer? What can the program offer?’ Some schools like Ohio State and Penn State are really good in wrestling, but do you want to go to a body shop where you are just another name?” Also: “I think I have found my home here at Oregon State.”
Oregon State also lost promising young heavyweight Aden Attao, a two-time Pan American Games Greco-Roman champion who redshirted last season and never wrestled a match for the Beavers. Attao departed in late August to join the national Greco-Roman team at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Attao, who is still taking classes online at OSU, is participating in the U23 World Greco-Roman Championships this week in Serbia.
“My biggest regret is in April, I wanted to part ways with him,” Pendleton says. “I had a gut feeling about it. He had one foot in and one foot out. His forte is Greco-Roman. We totally understood that. I just wish he had pulled the trigger earlier. We saved a roster spot for him, and I thought (him leaving so close to the start of the season) was a little bit selfish.”
Rademacher will be the straw that stirs the Orange drink in 2025-26. A Pac-12 runner-up at 197 as a freshman in 2023-24, he redshirted last season while mounting an impressive credentials list that includes the U20 Senior Pan American championship and the U20 U.S. Open championships. Rademacher was honored as USA Wrestling’s Athlete of the week in August following his U20 World Championships triumph.
The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.
“Not many people can say they are the best in the world,” Pendleton says. “It has been fun watching his continual moving of the goal posts. He wanted to be an All-American. Now his sights are firmly set on the 2028 Olympic Games.”
Oregon State has not had an individual NCAA champion since 1996, when Les Gutches won the second of back-to-back titles at 177.
“Justin has a tremendous shot at being a national champion,” Pendleton says.
Daschle Lamer is a redshirt sophomore from Crescent Valley High and a close friend of Rademacher’s. Part of the reason why Lamer, who wrestled at Cal Poly the past two seasons, transferred to OSU was to work out with Rademacher.
“Justin is two weight classes above me, but he is a perfect training partner,” says Lamer, who may wrestle at 174 this season but lost to OSU’s McDonnell in the Pac-12 finals at 184 last season. “He has such great tools. I am excited to continue to work and learn more things from him.”
Lamer will wrestle this season with lofty aspirations.
“My goal is to make that podium (top eight) at nationals, but I want higher than that,” he says. “I am chasing an NCAA title. I want to continue to grow as a wrestler, to perform at the peak of my potential.”
Lamer will have a battle just getting into Oregon State’s regular lineup at 174. Matt Olguin is back for his senior season after knee surgery sidelined him in 2024-25. Olguin, who began his OSU career with a redshirt season in 2020-21, made it to the NCAA Championships in 2022 and ’23. He was 25-8 and a Pac-12 champion at 165 as a sophomore in ’23.
“He is back into the swing of things, and you see flashes,” Pendleton says. “We will see it more and more often as he works his way back into things.”
Lamer won’t be eligible to wrestle for the Beavers until after fall term ends in December. After that, the competition between Lamer — whose brothers Chance and Legend wrestled with him at Cal Poly last season — and Olguin “is a good problem to have,” Crooks says. “It is good for the team and good for our fan base to have another Corvallis kid wrestling for us.”
The other one is Gabe Whisenhunt, a four-time state prep champion at Crescent Valley who was a regular at 133 as a redshirt freshman in 2023-24. He missed last season with a calf injury and hurt a knee in a preliminary match at last Saturday’s wrestle-off. OSU coaches are hopeful to have him return to action sometime in November.
Whisenhunt’s injury opens the door for Saldate, a three-time Nevada state prep champion from Las Vegas who has impressed the head coach.
“Of all our freshman, the guy who has been getting the biggest noise in the room is Manny,” Pendleton says. “He grabs the hardest guys to wrestle every single day. He desires to be beat upon, if that makes any sense. It is going to make him better. He is one who stands out.”
Engel was heavily involved in the recruitment of Saldate and says they talk on the phone every Sunday.
“He is like a little buzzsaw on the mat,” Engel says. “He is going to get scored on, but he is going to score more points than most of the guys he faces. Manny is going to be really good.”
The other freshman who could crack the lineup at Princeton is Adams, a two-time winner in international junior competition and a member of the U.S. team at the 2024 U20 World Championships. Adams also competed at the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials.
“We sometimes forget he is a freshman, because he has wrestled on some of the biggest stages in the world,” Rhoden says. “He is not afraid to compete. There is a little bit of swagger about him, which is good to see in a young guy.”
Pendleton says the other freshman who has stood out is Khale McDonnell — T.J.’s younger brother — at heavyweight. But in last Saturday’s wrestle-off, Khale got muscled around by senior Charlie Hastriter, losing 9-3.
“Khale was wrestling a senior who has been around the block a couple of times,” Crooks says. “He is young and finding his way. He wants to be good, and he is going to be good. He works hard at it.”
The best match in the wrestle-off was at 149, where juniors CJ Hamblin and Nolan Tolentino locked horns for seven tough minutes. Hamblin won 4-2 in a match in which Tolentino pushed the action most of the way. Tolentino had knee surgery early in a promising freshman season and has struggled to get back to form since.
Oregon State will carry a squad of 13 wrestlers to Princeton to participate in the event where each will get at least three matches. The expected lineup:
125: Renteria
133: Sedate
141: Singleton
149: Hamblin and Tolentino
157: Adams
165: Keller Rock, Grant Gambrell or Sergia Montoya
174: Olguin and Lamer (wrestling unattached)
184: T.J. McDonnell
197: Rademacher
HWT: Hastriter and Khale McDonnell
Oregon State will compete in five dual meets this season, all at home. The Beavers open against Utah Valley on Nov. 16. The big one is against Ohio State — ranked No. 4 nationally by Wrestestat — on Jan. 4. The Buckeyes, who finished fifth at the NCAA meet a year ago, lambasted the Beavers 40-3 in Columbus, with only Renteria winning on the OSU side.
Senior Maximo Renteria is the defending Pac-12 champion at 125 (courtesy Cade Patton/OSU athletics)
“We will go more tournament-heavy this season,” says Pendleton, though there has been no reveal of what other tournaments they will participate in.
FloWrestling’s preseason rankings have Rademacher at No. 6 at 197. Other rankings of OSU wrestlers: Renteria No. 16 at 125, Whisenhunt No. 26 at 133, Singleton No. 26 at 141, Hamblin No. 28 at 157, Olguin No. 22 at 174 and McDonnell No. 21 at 184. Oregon State is ranked 28th as a tournament team.
The Pac-12 will again have only four teams — Oregon State, Cal Poly, Arkansas Little Rock and Cal State Bakersfield -- and the conference has again been approved for automatic qualifier status for the 2026 NCAA Championships. The lineup will change considerably for the following season. Northern Illinois is officially in, and it is likely that North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Air Force, Cal Baptist, Utah Valley and Wyoming will join up to form a 12-team league.
“We are going to have a large and very impressive conference,” Pendleton says.
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