Robert R. Faulk
Oklahoma State brought 9, mostly backup wrestlers to the Reno Tournament of Champions Sunday, to varying levels of success. Because of new redshirt rules, true freshmen are allowed to wrestle in up to 5 dates of competition and still keep their redshirt.
Non-true freshman are allowed to wrestle in open competitions “unattached” and not lose eligibility.
For Reno TOC, Zach Blankenship (125), Reece Witcraft (133), Daniel Manibog (157), Chance Mclane (165), Jalin Harper (165) and Gavin Stika (184) made up the attached “team.” Andrew Bloemhof (141), Travis Mastrogiovanni (157) and varsity starter Trevor Mastrogiovanni (125) (surprise!) wrestled unattached.
Reno is usually a pretty good open tournament, but this year seemed a little light. Michigan State (Top 25), Wyoming, Cal Baptist and Stanford were some of the other decent programs that sent wrestlers, however, there were only 7 ranked wrestlers in the whole tournament with #7 RayVon Foley from Michigan State being the highest, followed by #13 Trevor Mastrogiovanni.
The tournament seeders had a lot of respect for the Cowboys and gave Trevor Mastro the 1 seed, Blankenship the 6 seed, Witcraft the 4, Bloemhof the 3, Manibog the 4, Travis Mastro the 7, Harper the 5, Mclane the 7, and Stika the 3.Several guys outwrestled their seeds, but several were a little disappointing.
It should be no surprise that Trevor Mastrogiovanni made the finals pinning his first two opponents (Kai Villasenor from Clackamas and Brayden Boyd from Corban) with relative ease. In the quarters against Wyoming’s Garrett Ricks (8 seed), Mastro got a quick takedown and 4 back points to go up 6-0 and cruised to a 8-1 win.
He faced 5th seeded Benny Gomez from Michigan state, and again got up 6-0 in the first period with a takedown and 4 backpoints before getting the pin. He faced 2 seed Tristan Lujan from Michigan State in the finals, who had won 4 straight (including 2 quick tech falls) and was 13-0 on the year coming in to the match. Mastro got to a leg and Lujan gave a good fight trying to roll out and hold on to a foot before giving up the takedown and Mastro going up 2-0. Mastro rode him out and built up almost a minute of riding time. Lujan had the choice to start period 2, chose down and got out fairly quickly to narrow the score to 2-1.
