Redshirt senior Anthony Robles was the star of ASU’s Senior Day. But he was only one of the only bright spots for the Sun Devil wrestling squad, who suffered a 40-11 blowout loss at the hands of No. 22 Cal Poly Sunday afternoon.
Robles once again dominated the 125-pound weight class with a 15-0 technical fall in the last match of the dual.
Junior Jake Meredith was the only other winner on the day for ASU with a first-period pin at 184 pounds.
“I had a lot of emotions going into this match,” Robles said. “I take pride in wrestling here at home. It was real important for me just to put on one last show for the home crowd and for my family before I head off to nationals. I was pretty happy with the results.”
Robles, who received a standing ovation when introduced prior to the meet, gave the crowd everything they were expecting from the fifth-year senior, who is now 24-0 on the season.
“It was a little sad,” Robles said of his emotions after the match. “My career so far has been awesome, it’s been really exciting. It just feels like it went by too fast. I’m grateful for what’s happened, and I have two more things to do. I have to win Pac-10’s and win nationals, and then I’ll be satisfied with my career.”
Robles is feeling extremely confident heading into the final six weeks of the season as he eyes a national championship.
“I definitely feel like I’m going to win [the national championship],” Robles said. “I’m excited, I’m ready to go. I’m going in 100 percent.”
Robles’ domination was a high point for ASU on a day filled with overall disappointment, which included two forfeits due to injury.
“Staring off every dual 12 points down, it’s definitely hard for the team to get up,” ASU coach Shawn Charles said. “Then, starting out with the lower weight classes where we’re very inexperienced and giving up so many losses back to back, it’s just a very hard way to start out duals and it’s a very hard way to win duals.”
Meredith agreed with Charles, saying the Sun Devils have a lot of work to do in order to be adequately prepared for the Pac-10 Championships on Feb. 27.
“I really don’t know what to say, to be honest,” Meredith said. “We just got to get back in the practice room and work harder. We’re making little mistakes, we just have to get back into the practice room and fix them.”
ASU will head back to the drawing board this week to fix Sunday’s mistakes and try to rebuild after the tough loss to the Mustangs.
“There’s not much we can do about it right now except to encourage our guys to keep battling hard for Arizona State,” Charles said. “Hopefully by Pac-10s, we’ve prepared ourselves to try and get some of these guys to the NCAA tournament.”
ASU’s next dual is this Friday in Lincoln, Neb., against the No. 15 Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
