The heavyweights once again led the ASU wrestling team but only propelled it to only one win as the Sun Devils (7-6) were knocked out after three duals at the Virginia Duals.
In their opening dual against North Dakota State, the Sun Devils dropped their first five matches and couldn’t recover in time, dropping the dual to the Bison (3-4) 22-19.
Redshirt freshman No. 11 Blake Stauffer, redshirt sophomore Kevin Radford, redshirt senior No. 6 Jake Meredith and redshirt senior No. 18 Levi Cooper all picked up victories for the Sun Devils in the loss.
Those four Sun Devils finished a combined 14-2 overall on the tournament and helped stave off elimination in their consolation match against Rider.
After falling behind 16-9 following redshirt sophomore Joel Smith’s 6-0 defeat to No. 16 Rider redshirt junior Ramon Santiago at 165 pounds, the four Sun Devils won their matches, capped off by Cooper’s pin of redshirt freshman Greg Velasco, to win 28-16 over the Broncs (5-4).
Unfortunately, the Sun Devils couldn’t keep their momentum going and again fell behind early to Kent State, their third opponent.
Freshman Codey Combs broke a streak of four straight Golden Flashes (4-2) match wins with his first career pin against Kent State senior Tommy Sasfy.
The Sun Devils’ fate in Virginia was sealed four matches later when Meredith was pinned by former NCAA champion and redshirt senior Dustin Kilgore, as the Golden Flashes finished the dual by a 26-12 victory.
Reach the reporter at dsshapi1@asu.edu
