No. 20 West Virginia Wrestlers Fall Big to No. 5 Oklahoma State

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.— The West Virginia wrestling team is still stuck in the unfortunate rut against Big 12 foe Oklahoma State.

The No. 20 ranked Mountaineers fell to the No. 5 Cowboys 29-9 on Sunday afternoon inside the WVU Coliseum, adding another tally to Oklahoma State’s unblemished mark of 17 consecutive wins over West Virginia all-time.

West Virginia’s second four-match win streak of the season came to a close, putting the Mountaineers at 8-2 overall and 2-2 in the Big 12. Oklahoma State remained unbeaten at 7-0 and 3-0 in conference play.

“They obviously have a very good team that we are striving to be like,” Mountaineers head coach Tim Flynn said. “There were a couple close matches that I thought we could’ve won, but we got handled at some of the other weights. If we want to be a really great dual meet team, we have to be able to fix that and be competitive in all 10 matchups.”

West Virginia faced the highly-touted Oklahoma State squad without three of its normal starters in the lineup. Caleb Dowling (157 pounds) and Brody Conley (174) were out due to injury, and 125-pounder Jett Strickenberger is currently on a weight-descent plan after wrestling up a weight class at 133 pounds in the Mountaineers’ victory over Columbia.

Strickenberger will likely be available for the Mountaineers’ road contest against Morgan State on Jan. 28, but he will miss West Virginia’s matchup against No. 2 Missouri on Jan. 26, according to Flynn.

The Mountaineers received a few highlights during the dual meet despite the loss. No. 11 ranked Peyton Hall upset No. 3 Izzak Olejnik by a 5-1 decision at 165 pounds, grabbing his team-leading 21st win. Freshman Ty Watters, ranked No. 10 at 149, defeated Sammy Alvarez 4-2. Austin Cooley also picked up a 5-0 victory over Kyle Haas at 197.

On the other side, Jordan Titus, who came into Sunday’s match ranked No. 14 at 141 pounds with an undefeated 17-0 record, suffered his first loss of the season. Titus fell to No. 6 ranked Tagen Jamison 4-2.

Alex Hornfeck, who was filling in for Dowling at 157, was defeated by No. 15 Teague Travis 5-2 after Travis scored a takedown with 23 seconds remaining. Mountaineers heavyweight Michael Wolfgram was edged 2-0 by No. 12 Konner Doucet.

Oklahoma State also added a pinfall victory at 174, two technical falls and a major decision to pull away on the scoreboard.

West Virginia will be idle until Missouri visits the WVU Coliseum in just under two weeks.