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Sun Devils send home two conference champions, will send five to nationals

ASU junior wrestler Ares Carpio wrestles with Cal Poly freshman Yoshito Funakoshi in the 125-pound weight division match at Wells Fargo Arena on Feb. 16, 2015. The Sun Devils would win in dominating fashion beating the Mustangs 30-9. (Daniel Kwon/The State Press)
ASU junior wrestler Ares Carpio wrestles with Cal Poly freshman Yoshito Funakoshi in the 125-pound weight division match at Wells Fargo Arena on Feb. 16, 2015. The Sun Devils would win in dominating fashion beating the Mustangs 30-9. (Daniel Kwon/The State Press)

ASU junior wrestler Ares Carpio wrestles with Cal Poly freshman Yoshito Funakoshi in the 125-pound weight division match at Wells Fargo Arena on Feb. 16, 2015. The Sun Devils would win in dominating fashion beating the Mustangs 30-9. (Daniel Kwon/The State Press)

ASU junior wrestler Ares Carpio wrestles with Cal Poly freshman Yoshito Funakoshi in the 125-pound weight division match at Wells Fargo Arena on Feb. 16, 2015. The Sun Devils would win in dominating fashion beating the Mustangs 30-9. (Daniel Kwon/The State Press)

The Sun Devils are sending home a pair of Pac-12 champions for the first time since 2011 and finished second as a team at the Pac-12 Championship tournament on Sunday.

Redshirt freshman Christian Pagdilao at 149 pounds and junior Blake Stauffer at 184 pounds took home the titles at their respective weight classes and punch tickets to the NCAA tournament later this month. A few other Sun Devils will also be making the trip to St. Louis for nationals.

As a team, Arizona State had its highest finish since they won the conference championship in 2006. They scored 107 points as a team to finish in second place behind the Oregon State Beavers with 139.5 points.

The Beavers have now won four straight Pac-12 championships and six under head coach Jim Zalesky.

Pagdilao started off behind in his championship bout against Oregon State’s Abraham Rodriguez and trailed 2-0 in the early goings. However, by the end of the second period Pagdilao had taken a 5-3 lead and was able to grind out a 7-4 victory.

Pagdilao was the fourth freshman to win a title at the 2015 Pac-12 championships, perhaps showing that the sport is continuing its resurgence in the conference with young and athletic wrestlers taking so many titles. Five freshmen in all took home titles on Sunday.

The second champion for the Sun Devils, Blake Stauffer, won his bout in slightly more exciting fashion. Matching up with Oregon State’s Taylor Meeks for the third time this season, the fight looked like it was going to overtime with 20 seconds left. Stauffer however was able to score the takedown of the night with 15 seconds left on the clock to secure his first Pac-12 championship and a spot at the NCAA tournament.

ASU had several runners-up in the tournament including junior Ares Carpio at 125 pounds who finished in third place, junior Matt Kraus at 141 pounds who finished in second, redshirt senior Chace Eskam at heavyweight who finished in second and sophomore Oliver Pierce at 157 pounds who placed third.

Before the tournament, the NCAA announced how many wrestlers from each weight class in each division would get spots at the NCAA tournament. The Pac-12 received a total of 19 with nearly every class getting two each except for 157 pounds, which received three and 197 pounds and the heavyweights which received only one.

Carpio and Kraus had chances to punch tickets to the NCAAs if they could finish in “true” second place by winning one more bout. In Pierce’s case, his ticket was already punched since 157 pounds will send three wrestlers. Unfortunately for Eskam, his chances were ended when he lost in the championship bout since his class is only sending one wrestler.

The first chance came to Carpio as he matched up with Stanford’s Evan Silver, who defeated him back in January. Carpio got the better of Silver this time around with the highest of stakes scoring a 7-3 decision win and earning a trip to nationals.

Kraus dominated for the majority of his bout against Oregon State’s Devin Reynolds to secure his spot nationals with a 5-2 decision win.

Those five going to nationals will finish their seasons in St. Louis starting on March 19.

Reach the reporter at wslane@asu.edu or on Twitter @bill_slane.

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