The Cyclones looked good after day one at the Big 12 Championships. They lead the team standings with 129.5 points, 10 more than second-place Oklahoma State, and five wrestlers will look to cement themselves as Big 12 champions.
Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s action:
Seven Cyclones reach semifinals in session one
Session one was successful for the Cyclones, as it saw seven of the team’s wrestlers make their way to the semifinals.
The most surprising of the Cyclones’ semifinalists was Kysen Terukina at 125 pounds. Terukina, who came into the weekend as the No. 6 seed, took down Oklahoma’s Conrad Hendriksen, setting up a match with last year’s Big 12 champion at 125 pounds No. 3 Stevo Poulin from Northern Colorado.
Terukina defeated the defending champion 3-2, securing a spot in the semifinals in session two while also securing a third appearance in the NCAA Championships.
Other than Terukina’s surprise run to the semifinals, it was mostly chalk on the Cyclones side. Both of the Cyclones No. 1 seeds: Anthony Echemendia (141) and Casey Swiderski (149) made their way to the semifinals with ease. Three out of four No. 2 seeds advanced their way with relative ease, those wrestlers being Evan Frost (133), David Carr (165) and Yonger Bastida (285), with MJ Gaitan (174) being the only Cyclone with a top-two seed to not make the semifinals after losing his quarterfinal match in sudden victory.
Those three wrestlers were especially dominant in their first matches, with all six victories coming with bonus points.
Five Cyclones also clinched a trip to Kansas City for the 2024 NCAA Championships during session one. Those wrestlers were Terukina, Frost, Swiderski, Chittum and Carr.
After session one the Cyclones led the team standings with 71 points, holding a 3.5 point lead over second place Oklahoma State.
Cyclones go 5-2 in semifinal bouts
Session two also proved fruitful for the Cyclones, as five wrestlers advanced their way to Sunday’s finals.
Frost, Echemendia, Chittum, Carr and Bastida will all wrestle for a Big 12 title Sunday evening.
All five Cyclones who won their semifinal matches had relatively drama-free matches. Frost, Echemendia and Bastida all won their matches by major decision, securing important bonus points for the team standings, while Chittum and Carr won their matches 6-0 and 5-1, respectively.
Bastida and Echemendia also cemented their spots in the NCAA Championships with their wins.
The drama came in the two matches the Cyclones dropped.
At 133 pounds, No. 6 Kysen Terukina was matched up against No. 2 seed Troy Spratley from Oklahoma State.
It was a slow match from the start, with the only points coming from escapes in the second and third periods.
The match then went into sudden victory tied at 1-1. Terukina was on the ropes, trying to stay out of a potential takedown when the action got taken out of the circle. The referee called stalling on Terukina, giving a point and the win to Spratley.
A frustrated Terukina then took off his head gear and slammed it to the mat, resulting in one team point being taken away from the Cyclones.
Two matches later at 149, Casey Swiderski found himself down late in the match when his opponent Jordan Williams from Oklahoma State went down with an apparent collar bone injury.
Williams laid on the mat for an extended time before getting up to finish the third period.
When the match got back underway it was all Swiderski, as he made a late push to try to secure the comeback.
Down 8-5, Swiderski continued attacking as Williams was just trying to survive.
After two consecutive stalling calls on Williams, the match sat at 8-7 with nine seconds left.
Swiderski once again came out firing, as he shot for a takedown that took Wiliams all the way out of bounds as the time expired.
The referees decided against handing out a third stalling call against Williams, which sealed the loss for the No. 1 seed Swiderski.
Swiderski was irate, having to be held back by the coaching staff following the controversial loss.
Despite the two heart-breakers, there was not too much to complain about for Cyclone fans. Five wrestlers will have the chance to cement themselves as Big 12 champions Sunday and the team extended its lead to 10 points over Oklahoma State in the team standings.
Carr vs. O’Toole Part IV headlines five championship matchups
Five Cyclones turn their focus towards a championship match on Sunday evening.
At 133 pounds, Frost will look to dethrone four-time Big 12 champion Daton Fix of Oklahoma State.
Frost has a tall task in front of him.
Fix is undefeated on the season and defeated Frost 11-3 in their first matchup in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Regardless of the result this has been a very encouraging run for the redshirt freshman. Fix’s reign over 133 pounds comes to an end no matter what this year, and Frost looks like he could be the one to step into his place.
Coming off a dominant day one, No. 1 seed Echemendia will look to secure the title at 141 pounds.
The red-shirt junior will face off against in-state opponent No. 2 seed Cael Happel out of Northern Iowa.
Echemendia won the first matchup 9-6 in a dramatic match at the dual in Hilton Coliseum earlier in the season and if he can repeat that performance he will secure his first Big 12 title.
At 157 pounds No. 4 seed Chittum was the lone Cyclone to secure a trip to the finals that was not a top-two seed.
Chittum defeated No. 5 seed Brock Mauller from Missouri and No. 8 seed Jared Hill from Oklahoma to advance to the finals in his first year as a Cyclone.
He now is set to face No. 2 seed Ryder Downey from UNI. Downey beat Chittum in their first matchup 12-9.
At 165 pounds it’s the matchup everyone’s been waiting for: Carr vs. O’Toole part IV.
Carr is 2-1 in his career against No. 1 Keegan O’Toole, defeating him in last year’s Big 12 Championship, but O’Toole got the better of Carr in the NCAA Championship final defeating him 8-2.
O’Toole missed this year’s dual at Iowa State due to illness, but now the time has finally come to see the long-awaited rematch.
Finally, at 285, there is a matchup between two undefeated wrestlers. Iowa State’s No. 2 Bastida will take on Air Force’s No. 1 seed Wyatt Hendrickson.
This match has a lot of intrigue as the two have never met, and it could likely be a national championship preview.
Both wrestlers dominated the competition on the way to the finals, but only one can walk away from Sunday with their undefeated record intact.
The Cyclones look to have a great chance of securing their first Big 12 championship since 2009.
Session three, which includes the consolation semifinals and the seventh place matches, will begin at noon Sunday, with the finals set to begin at 7:30 p.m.
Both sessions can be streamed on ESPN+, and the finals will also be aired on ESPN2.
