Cowboy Wrestling Set for NCAA Championship in St. Louis

Oklahoma State Notes
Brackets
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STILLWATER – The Oklahoma State Cowboy wrestling team prepares to begin wrestling at the 2021 NCAA Championship this Thursday through Saturday in St. Louis, Missouri. Nine Cowboys qualified to compete in the event, led by the No. 1 seed in the 133-pound bracket, sophomore Daton Fix who is coming off his second individual Big 12 title.

Tournament Details
The NCAA Championships are divided into seven sessions over three days of competition. Sessions 1-4 will be broken up in to sub-sessions with the first five weights going before clearing the arena for the second five weights. Each day of competition will begin at 10 a.m. CT.

Thursday, March 18
Session 1A - 10 a.m. CT (First five weights)
Session 1B - 1 p.m. CT (Second five weights)
Session 2A - 5 p.m. CT (First five weights)
Session 2B - 8 p.m. CT (Second five weights)

Friday, March 19
Session 3 - 10 a.m. CT (First five weights)
Session 4 - 2 p.m. CT (Second five weights)
Session 5 - 7 p.m. CT

Saturday, March 20
Session 6 - 10 a.m. CT
Session 7 - 6 p.m. CT

Tune In
Sessions I, III, IV: ESPNU
Session II, V, VI: ESPN2
Session VII: ESPN
Individual Mat Streams: ESPN3 (FIND HERE)
Listen: Hot 93.7 KSPI-FM, 101.1 KVRO-FM (Friday Night Only: Session V)
Live Stats: Trackwrestling.com

NCAA Tournament Seeds Announced
Oklahoma State will send nine Cowboys to the event with four wrestlers earning top-10 seeds in their brackets, including top-seeded Daton Fix at 133 pounds. Following Fix, Boo Lewallen (149) and AJ Ferrari (197) earned top-five seeds in their respective brackets. Both wrestlers earned the fourth seed in their weight classes after winning individual Big 12 Championships in Tulsa. Travis Wittlake will make his NCAA Championships debut as the No. 10 seed in the 165-pound bracket. Dakota Geer (11), Dustin Plott (18) and Trevor Mastrogiovanni (21) all landed inside the top-25 of their brackets and will look to make a run at the podium. Heavyweight Austin Harris will wrestle his first NCAA Championship as the No. 30 seed after earning one of six at-large bids in his weight class and Wyatt Sheets will be the No. 33 seed at 157 pounds after getting into the tournament following another wrestler's withdrawal due to injury.

John Smith at the NCAA Tournament
John Smith has led the Cowboys to five NCAA titles and has coached 32 NCAA individual champions in his time as the head coach at Oklahoma State. He has mentored 142 All-Americans since taking over the program in 1991-92. His 32 NCAA Champions and 142 All-Americans lead all active coaches across NCAA DI wrestling. In Smith's 29 complete seasons, the Cowboys have finished among the top three teams a total of 15 times.

Winning Wittlake
With a 44-3 record at Oklahoma State, sophomore Travis Wittlake is 15th on the list of career winning percentage of wrestlers with a minimum of 30 career bouts at OSU. At 93.6%, he currently sits six spots behind of teammate Daton Fix who holds a 43-2 record in his career and is ninth on the list. After a 28-2 record as a redshirt freshman in 2019- 2020, Wittlake is 16-1 in his sophomore season and is the No. 10 seed at his first NCAA Championships.

Living Up to the Hype
Superstar freshman AJ Ferrari has been as good as advertised in his addition to the Oklahoma State lineup at 197 pounds this season. Heading into the NCAA tournament, he is 15-1 with six ranked wins and outscoring his opponents 162-47. The lone loss of his young career came to former No. 1-ranked Noah Adams of West Virginia in a 3-2 bout at the Cowboy Challenge Tournament. In the Cowboys' dual against No. 13 Iowa State, Ferrari defeated No. 20 Yonger Bastida by a score of 5-2. The win marked his first against a ranked opponent and gave the Cowboys the lead, which ended up being just enough to hold off the Cyclones.
The fourth seed at the Big 12 Championship, Ferrari dominated his bracket knocking off the top two seeds and top-10 nationally ranked Tanner Sloan (SDSU), 7-1, and Wyoming's Stephen Buchanan, 13-8 in consecutive bouts. With his performance, Ferrari became only the 13th true freshman to win the conference tournament in program history and was named the Most Outstanding Wrestler of the event.

Oklahoma State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

AJ Ferrari

Daton Fix

Austin Harris

Boo Lewallen

Trevor Mastrogiovanni

Dustin Plott

Wyatt Sheets

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