The Cyclone wrestling team continues 2024 with another victory, going 2-0 on the road. Iowa State competed on Friday where it beat No. 21 Arizona State 28-10, and after a day off, the team traveled to Walnut, California, and added a 39-3 win against California Baptist to begin Big 12 play.
Chittum’s monster weekend
Freshman Cody Chittum just notched the biggest win of his freshman year, defeating two-time NCAA All-American Jacori Teemer. Chittum got the best of No. 4 Teemer, securing the first top-five victory of his young career. Against California Baptist, he started right where he left off, defeating Chaz Hallmark by a tech fall of 30-11.
Chittum’s dominant victory would be the theme of the Cyclones’ dual against California Baptist. After an up-and-down start to the season, the weekend was huge for Chittum as he has now shown flashes of what he could become for the Cyclones for years to come.
Taking ‘Carr’ of business all weekend
David Carr and Yonger Bastida continue to dominate their respective weight classes and are now a combined 27-1 on the season. They are both clear national title contenders and have not let many get in their way thus far.
At 165 pounds, Carr faced Timothy Cowan and pinned him in 2:01. This gave Carr his 106th career win, 61 of those coming with bonus points. Carr’s pin put the Cyclones up 11-0 in the first two matches against the Lancers.
Carr started off his conference slate with an impressive win as he looks to get back to the top of his class.
Since Bastida decided to go from 197 to heavyweight this off-season, he has yet to concede a match. He came into the dual 13-0 including eight bonus-point wins, five top-20 victories, two top-five wins and a 53:1 takedown ratio. He did not slow down all weekend as he added another takedown clinic, defeating Max Acciardi 21-6 in 2:24.
He is now 14-0 on the year and is one of the clear favorites to become the next heavyweight national champion.
Bonus points to everyone
The weekend of wrestling was huge in building confidence and momentum for many Cyclones who have had a good, but not great, start to the season.
At times this year, it has been an up-and-down season for key starters such as Kysen Terukina, MJ Gaitan, Julien Broderson and Will Feldkamp. During the weekend, all four of those guys managed to pick up a pair of wins with a few of them by way of ranked wins and bonus points victories.
At 125 pounds, Terukina earned a 4-2 decision over Elijah Griffin. This tough battle could give Terukina some confidence moving into conference play considering Griffin was ranked to start the year.
Gaitan also went undefeated over the weekend as he snuck in a takedown with 12 seconds left in his match against Justin Phillips to win 10-9.
Broderson outscored his opponents 18-6 on the weekend in his two wins, while Feldkamp pinned Nathan Haas of California Baptist in 1:03. Feldkamp had a huge weekend for himself and joined Chittum, Carr, Bastida and Anthony Echemendia in earning bonus points in their victories.
Echemendia is now on a six-match winning streak all with bonus points. His 20-3 tech fall over Emilio Trujillo in 3:42 should give him some much-needed motivation going forward.
The lone Cyclone loss came once again at 133 pounds when Ethan Perryman fell 4-0 to Hunter Leake. Perryman went 0-2 over the weekend as he took the place of normal starter Evan Frost.
Iowa State’s dominant win over California Baptist is a strong start to the Big 12 slate. The team will look to build off the weekend when the Cyclones return home to face Utah Valley and Pittsburgh next weekend.
