Mizzou wrestling grabs pair of individual titles in fourth place finish at Big 12 Championship
TULSA, Okla. (KMIZ)
No. 14 Mizzou wrestling will return to Columbia from the Big 12 Championship with a fourth place team finish, as well as a pair of individual champions.
On Saturday, Cam Steed (174) and Aeoden Sinclair (184) each claimed their first-ever Big 12 crowns, as five more of their teammates also hit the podium at BOK Center, on Saturday.
In Session III, the consolation semifinals, Gage Walker kicked things off for Mizzou at 133 pounds. He ended up losing his match by a tight margin, dropping down to the fifth-place bout. He ended up winning that final bout, after his Iowa State opponent medically forfeited.
Tolton alum Teague Travis (157) and Jarrett Stoner (285) also lost their bouts to drop Tiger Style to 0-3 in the consolation semifinal round.
However, quite a few of head coach Brian Smith's guys did mange to walk away with some hardware. Mack Mauger (125) and Josh Edmond (149) each locked up seventh-place finishes to earn at-large bids for the national tournament. Despite a comeback effort from Travis in his fifth-place bout, he ended up with a sixth-place finish, on Saturday.
At the end of Session III, Mizzou had some work to do, sitting at fifth place as a team.
But, Tiger Style got the results it was looking for in Session IV.
In his second-straight conference finals appearance, Steed got a win in upset fashion, toppling top-seeded Ale Facundo from Oklahoma State. A four-point win secured the redshirt-junior his first-ever conference crown.
It was Sinclair's first time ever competing at the Big 12 Championship, but it sure didn't look like it. The redshirt freshman continued what's been a dominant season with a commanding, seven-point win in the finals for his first-ever Big 12 title.
Coach Smith and company's fourth place finish at the conference championship marks a big improvement from just one year before, when the Tigers place No. 8 overall. More Tiger wrestlers also walked away with hardware, this year, as well. MU's seven conference medalists is up from the five that they had the year prior.
Up next - No. 14 Mizzou will await the announcement of the at-large bids for the NCAA Championships. The NCAA Championship bracket will be revealed on Wednesday, March 11.
