Big 12 Wrestling Championships finals set as Oklahoma State leads Iowa State
Starting Saturday night, the big 12 wrestling championships will shift from building team points to deciding conference titles, with Iowa State sending four wrestlers into the finals and Oklahoma State carrying a widened lead in the team race. Friday at 11: 00 p. m. ET, results from the semifinal session at Tulsa’s BOK Center locked in the matchups that will crown champions.
Iowa State’s four finalists turn Saturday night into title-or-second decisions
Iowa State pushed four wrestlers through to the conference finals during session two Friday night inside the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Stevo Poulin, Anthony Echemendia, Rocky Elam and Yonger Bastida will wrestle for Big 12 titles on Saturday night, giving the Cyclones four chances to convert deep runs into championships.
The matchups are set: Poulin will face Troy Spratley of Oklahoma State in the 125-pound final, and Echemendia will meet Sergio Vega of Oklahoma State in the 141-pound final. At 197, Elam advanced with a 9-7 win over Oklahoma’s DJ Parker, while Bastida reached the heavyweight final after pinning Arizona State’s David Szuba in the first period.
Those results also clarify what the finals mean for individual résumés. Poulin makes his second career Big 12 finals appearance and will wrestle for his second conference title. Echemendia makes his second career Big 12 finals appearance and will wrestle for his second league title. Elam makes his third Big 12 finals appearance and will wrestle for his second Big 12 title and third conference title, having also been a 2021 MAC champion. Bastida will try for his second Big 12 title in as many finals appearances.
Oklahoma State’s points cushion grows, tightening the team race math
With the tournament moving into Saturday’s placement sessions and finals, the team standings put Oklahoma State in position to control the race. In the team competition, Oklahoma State widened its lead to 154. 5 points over second-place Iowa State at 122. 5 during Friday night’s session, while Arizona State sat third with 78. 5 points.
The immediate consequence is that Iowa State’s path to catching Oklahoma State now runs through a smaller set of remaining scoring opportunities: Saturday afternoon’s consolation semifinals and placing matches, then Saturday night’s finals. Iowa State’s day-one output included 22 bonus points, produced by three falls, two injury defaults, four tech falls and six major decisions, but Friday’s session ended with a split performance in the semifinals.
Iowa State went 4-4 in the semifinal round, with Jacob Frost, Connor Euton, MJ Gaitan and Isaac Dean losing in the semis and dropping into the consolation semifinals Saturday afternoon. That shift pushes those wrestlers into matches where placement points become the focus, while the four finalists become the Cyclones’ clearest chances to swing the top of the standings in the big 12 wrestling championships.
BOK Center schedule and key finals matchups: Poulin, Echemendia and the NCAA qualifiers
Saturday’s competition is split into two defined sessions at the BOK Center. Session 3 is scheduled for Saturday at noon ET and will include consolation semifinals and placing matches. Session 4, the finals, is scheduled to begin at 7: 00 p. m. ET.
Beyond the chase for conference titles, Friday night’s results also produced NCAA championship implications for Iowa State. Garrett Grice and Poulin qualified for the NCAA Championships during Session 2, pushing Iowa State’s total number of national qualifiers to seven. Grice’s route to qualification included a rebound through the consolation bracket after losing his first match of the day; he won three straight on the consolation side, including two by major decision, to qualify for his first national championships.
Poulin’s semifinal win at 125 pounds set up one of the defined finals storylines: he controlled North Dakota State’s Ezekiel Witt from start to finish in a 9-3 decision, using an early takedown and four near-fall points in the opening period to build separation. At 141, Echemendia’s 2-1 win over Oklahoma’s Tyler Wells turned on a stall point, after Echemendia’s pace and attack rate created the deciding margin in a low-scoring bout.
For Iowa State, Saturday’s outcomes will be decided quickly on the mat, not in projections. If Oklahoma State’s lead holds through the noon ET session and its finalists convert at 7: 00 p. m. ET, the Cowboys’ advantage will be difficult for Iowa State to overcome by the end of the night.
