OSU’s win over NU is upheld by NCAA
BY CRAIG SESKER
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
Whoa, hold up there, Cowboys: OSU’s 19-18 win has an asterisk
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LINCOLN – The NCAA on Friday upheld Oklahoma State’s 19-18 wrestling victory over Nebraska, deciding it couldn’t overturn a scoring error that prevented the Huskers from coming away with a tie.
Pat McCormick, the NCAA’s supervisor of officials, said Friday morning he knows that Thursday night’s Big 12 dual meet should have ended in a 19-19 tie.
A scoring error in the 184-pound match should have given NU’s Travis Pascoe a 12-4 major decision win over Clay Kehrer. But the error was not pointed out to match official Cody Olson until after the dual, meaning the top-ranked Cowboys’ one-point win over the sixth-ranked Huskers stands.
McCormick said the NCAA wrestling rulebook states that scoring corrections in dual meets must be made by the referee before the start of a subsequent match. McCormick said the only way the mistake could have been corrected is if it would have been reported prior to the next bout at 197 pounds.
NU Coach Mark Manning received word from McCormick late Friday morning that the 19-18 score was being upheld.
“The rule is very, very clear, “McCormick said in a telephone interview. “It was a dumb mistake, and it wasn’t fair to Nebraska. Nebraska should have tied the dual, and that’s too bad. I don’t like what’s happened, but my hands are tied because of what it says in the rulebook.
“The mistake was not caught at the appropriate time for it to be changed. That is a rule we need to revisit after the season.”
McCormick, who lives in Virginia, was asleep when Olson called him late Thursday night. McCormick said he waited to make his ruling until Friday morning after talking to Bob Bubb, the NCAA rules editor, to make sure they were clear on the rule.
“I wanted the call to be changed for our team and for our program, “Manning said. “The proof is in the pudding. We wrestled a great match with great effort, and we wrestled with great intensity. It’s one dual meet. In our eyes, the meet was a tie to me. Win or lose, we gained a lot of confidence.”
The controversy stems from a scoring error in Pascoe’s match with Clay Kehrer. When Kehrer was called for stalling late in the match, Pascoe should have been awarded two points instead of one. Olson, the match official, did not realize the error during the 184 match, nor did scorekeeper Terry Sindelar.
Manning was notified of the error in the middle of the 197 match by NU Assistant Coach Mike Greenfield. NU’s B.J. Padden led for much of the 197-pound bout, which would have clinched the dual win, before national champ Jake Rosholt rallied for a 3-2 win.
Manning admits he should have talked to Olson after the 197-pound bout, but he was caught up in the heat of an intense dual in front of a packed house of 3,442 fans at the NU Coliseum. Manning did not notify Olson of the error until after the dual.
“Pat understands it is a correctable error, “Manning said. “We were getting our 197-pounder ready to wrestle and there was just so much going on. We wanted to win the dual at 197.”
NU coaches initially thought a 19-19 tie would result in a win for Nebraska under the NCAA criteria used in duals. But the tie-breaker applies only to events like the National Duals in which teams advance in a bracket format.
The NCAA rule for dual meets was changed this year, stating that ties are not broken in regular-season duals. Illinois and Michigan wrestled to a 17-17 tie last weekend in a Big Ten dual.
The Huskers led 18-15 entering the final bout when national champ Steve Mocco earned a 12-2 win over Mitch Manstedt at heavyweight. The major decision gave the two-time defending national champion Cowboys a 19-18 win.
“It was a wild evening, “Manning said. “I don’t know if anything like this has ever happened in the history of wrestling. It’s crazy.”
Nebraska was seeking its first home win over the Cowboys since 1922. Oklahoma State has won the last two national titles.
In the 184 bout, Kehrer was warned once for stalling, Pascoe was twice awarded a point when Kehrer locked his hands and then Pascoe was awarded one point when Kehrer was called for stalling with 22 seconds left. Pascoe should have been awarded two points because it was Kehrer’s third stalling or locked hands violation.
Stalling calls and violations like locked hands are synonymous in the scoring progression of a match. In the case of stalling, a wrestler is warned once initially. The next two times he is called, his opponent receives a point each time. The next call is two points and then a successive call results in disqualification.
Instead of winning 11-4, Pascoe should have won 12-4 to give him the eight-point margin needed for a major decision. A major is worth one extra team point.
Olson said he has never seen anything like this in 11 years as an NCAA official: “This is very unique, very unusual. “
“¢ 125: Matt Keller, N, dec. Derrick Stevens, 4-2. 133: Nathan Morgan, OSU, dec. Dominick Moyer, 13-5. 141: Matt Murray, N, dec. Daniel Frishkorn, 10-4. 149: Zack Esposito, OSU, won by tech. fall over David Ingalls, 24-9. 157: B.J. Wright, N, pinned Kevin Ward, 6:23. 165: Jacob Klein, N, dec. Johny Hendricks, 5-4. 174: Chris Pendleton, OSU, dec. Marc Harwood, 17-8. 184: Travis Pascoe, N, dec. Clay Kehrer, 11-4. 197: Jake Rosholt, OSU, dec. B.J. Padden, 3-2. Hwt.: Steve Mocco, OSU, dec. Mitch Manstedt, 12-2. A: 3,442.
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