Cal-Poly Dual
Stanford 33 Cal Poly 12
The last time I was at Cal Poly was during my Lehigh undergraduate days in the winter of 1998. The trip is brought up often among those that were on the team, and not for good reasons. The consensus among anyone who endured the trip is it was the absolute worst trip while competing at Lehigh. On paper it was a good idea. We could escape the January chill and dreary gray winter landscape of Bethlehem, PA, for the beaches and sun of sweet California. What could be better?
The reality was we had 5 duals in a six day trip, which only allowed us to enjoy California from a gym, hotel, or seat in a van. It felt more like an upgraded prisoners tour of California. Plus the teams we faced were pretty darn tough. We ended up going 3-2 on the trip, losing to Cal Poly and Bakersfield.
I can remember the Cal Poly dual vividly as there was one wrestler on the team who looked like he just finished a surf session and was forced by his coach to leave the beach to come wrestle with his team at the dual. He was tall and gangly, with long bleach (maybe natural) blonde wavy hair, and as he warmed up he seemed uncoordinated in a way that made him look like he was new to wrestling.
Back in those days we weighed in the day before, so the first look at the other team could often be during the warm-ups, so everyone would try to figure out who they had during this time. At some point before the dual, someone uttered “I wonder who has the surf dude” or something along these lines, thinking the “uncoordinated non-wrestler” would be the easiest opponent of the dual. This was the third dual on our journey through California and the trip was getting a bit annoying at this point, so we were all secretly hoping to get the “surf dude.”
During the introductions, I ran out to shake my opponent’s hand and learned I would not be facing the surfer guy, as he would be at 165 (I wrestled 157 at the time). On the Lehigh team our strongest weights were in the middle with the guys at the weight above and below me eventually becoming all-americans, so we all assumed any one of us would make short work of this guy and send him back to the beach.
Turns out the guy who we all thought was the weakest wrestler on the team was an absolute hammer. The smile our 165 had on his face during the introductions quickly disappeared when his match started, as he quickly realized that, although very unorthodox, the “surf dude” was very, very good at wrestling. The match wasn’t close, especially when “surf dude” got on top. He was one of those guys who could seemingly get his leg in from anywhere and when he did, you were not getting out. It was a long match for our 165 and we all learned an important lesson that day: Cali wrestlers are different and don’t generally fit the mold of your typical wrestler. Additionally, don’t judge a book by its cover.
David Wells was the Cal Poly wrestler who we thought was a surfer dude and became an All-American that year. An interesting side note is that in the 1998 NCAA tournament David Wells lost to current Beat the Streets Bay Area Executive Director, John Lange, in his epic run where he lost in the first round and won 7 straight matches to take 3rd.
Fast forward to last week before we headed to Cal Poly and I couldn’t help but think about that trip in 1998 and the legend of David Wells. Maybe it was the trauma of that dual (I also lost my match), or the trip in general, but I worried that the team wouldn’t be ready for their fight. A lot of talk to the team during training was about how we needed to be ready for a battle and stuffing as much wrestling as we could into each minute of every match.
Considering the success of Cal Poly under John Sioredas in consistently being ranked in the top 25 and producing All-Americans, I knew this was going to be a tough match. Plus California bragging rights were on the line. So we really needed a solid collective effort to get the win; possibly better than the Iowa State dual. Fortunately, the team delivered.
It was a beautiful match, both figuratively and literally. The dual was outdoors on a stage in O’neil Green and the mat was surrounded by some large California Redwoods, as well as other amazing tree’s (did you know Cal Poly was named “Tree Campus USA” by the Arbour Day Foundation https://magazine.calpoly.edu/winter-2016/rooted-history-trees-cal-poly/). There was an ominous presence created by the surrounding tree’s, which suited the Stanford wrestling team well-we felt at home.
The wrestling was some of the best I have witnessed in my time here, mostly because the team made effective adjustments from our prior week’s performance. In Iowa I felt we did a poor job of controlling the center of the mat and gave up too much riding time, but at Cal Poly almost every wrestler pushed their opponent to the edge and was wrestling with an aggressive and offensive style. We also did a better job on the bottom position in most cases. Improvements are occurring week to week and the team is being extremely responsive to feedback, and from a coaches perspective this is all you could ask for.
I have written too much as is and need to get on with the business of running the program, so I’m not going to go through every weight, but there were some definite individual highlights.
We started the dual with another forfeit, so we knew some weights would have to “step up” to get the win. We are not sure when Nico will be back, but when he returns he will have a much stronger dual and tournament team.
133: Tyler Knox got the ball rolling with another ranked win. The #12 vs #13 match up was probably the most highly anticipated, as I thought (at the time) that match could be the deciding swing match. To the untrained eye (not seeing Knox wrestle every day in the room) the match may have looked a little closer than it was, but Knox was in control the whole match and took his opponent to where he is strong and was able to get another solid win
141: True freshman, Jack Consiglio, came up with some huge bonus points at 141 where he dominated in the top position with a pin, which made him the early front-runner for wrestler of the weekend (more on that later). I love the composure of Jack in a tough dual meet atmosphere.
157: Yes, another true freshman, Grigor Cholakyan, wrestled hard and secured more bonus points. We all know he is dangerous from his previous matches, but he is also a fighter from the first whistle to the last, which allowed him to earn the major decision.
174: Lorenzo is starting to get comfortable in competition and that will be a problem for everyone else at 174 in the country. Even though he had two big wins in Iowa, I thought he was wrestled a little “tight”, so seeing him open up here and secure the pin makes me feel real good as we head into our next set of competitions.
184: I like how Tye Monteiro is starting to “chain wrestle” a bit more and it paid off against one of Cal Poly’s better wrestlers. He stayed composed in a stressful match and it should propel his confidence to another level.
197: The consolation winner of “Stanford wrestler to face the toughest opponents in the early season” award is Nick Stemmet having faced the #1, #4, and #14 ranked wrestlers in the country (winner of award goes to Hunter Garvin facing #2, #4, and #5). Having losses in the matches can either crush a man’s confidence or motivate them to jump a level, and Nick decided to jump a level. Last season against the same opponent Nick earned a decision; this year he earned a technical fall in the 2nd period…a big jump!
HWT: Giving up plenty of pounds (he weighed in at 197), as well as plenty of points early on in the match, Brook Byers was able to pull off a fall against a ranked opponent. We preach that no matter what the score of a match to work to just score the next point, and that is exactly what Brook was doing when he put himself in position to secure the pin. Much to Jack Consiglio’s demise, Brook was the unanimous winner of the highly coveted “Wrestler of the Weekend” award.
Overall great performance from the team…
7 of 9 contested matches won by Stanford Wrestlers
Bonus points earned in 5 of those 7 wins
Stanford had 2x as many takedowns as Cal Poly
If you search Stanford Wrestling vs Cal Poly on YouTube you can watch the individual matches.
Hunter in All-Star Classic
While we were in SLO, Hunter Garvin traveled with Coach Gray to represent Stanford in the NWCA All-Star Classic at Penn State. Hunter wrestled #4 ranked Peyton Hall of West Virginia and it was an exciting match, as most matches are when Hunter is involved, with a lot of back and forth exchanges, but in the end Hunter got caught in a scramble in the third period and gave up the fall. We were excited to have Stanford represented at the All-Star Classic and are proud of the way Hunter competed. He “opened up” and was very offensive, but just came up short.
No. 14 Stanford 33, Cal Poly 12
125: Koda Holeman (CP) won by forfeit
133: #12 Tyler Knox (STAN) dec. #13 Zeth Romney (CP), 5-3
141: Jack Consiglio (STAN) fall Korbrin Shepherd (CP), F5:32
149: #8 Chance Lamer (CP) dec. #12 Jaden Abas (STAN), 5-1
157: Grigor Cholakyan (STAN) maj. dec. #33 Legend Lamer (CP), 15-2
165: #21 Luka Wick (CP) dec. Zach Hanson (STAN), 10-4
174: #9 Lorenzo Norman (STAN) fall Blake Hinrichsen (CP), F2:50
184: Tye Monteiro (STAN) dec. Daschle Lamer (CP), 9-7
197: #21 Nick Stemmet (STAN) tech. fall Jarad Priest (CP), 17-2 (3:32)
285: Brook Byers (STAN) fall #21 Trevor Tinker (CP), F5:18
On to CKLV
The Cal Poly match was the last dual of 2024, and we now move to the tournament portion of our season with CKLV and Midlands. CKLV is the toughest in-season tournament of the year and we are excited about the team we are bringing. We look at the tournament as a “dry run” for the NCAA tournament, so we are working through a mini-peaking training phase so we can see what adjustments we need to make in the 2nd half of the season.
Best,
Coach Ayres
