The ASU wrestling team concluded its regular season schedule on Monday in Fullerton, Calif., with the Pac-10 Conference Championships.
The two-day event concluded with ASU placing fifth. Boise State repeated as conference champions.
As expected, it was the Sun Devil sophomore that led the way.
No. 11 Anthony Robles (125 pounds) took home an individual Pac-10 title with a 17-1 technical fall over No. 17 Brandon Zoeteway of Cal State Bakersfield.
Sophomore No. 5 Chris Drouin fell just short of his own conference title after dropping a 9-8 decision to No. 2 Elijah Nacita.
The championships will undoubtedly go down as a success for the Sun Devil wrestlers, who prevailed against great odds this season.
After day one, it was guaranteed that no ASU wrestler would finish any lower than the top 8 in his respective weight class.
And while the path for most finalists is 14 minutes of successful wrestling, Robles only needed 7:27 of those 14 scheduled minutes on day one, securing a technical fall of 16-0 over Micah Ferguson of Cal Poly and a pin of Andre Gonzalez of Oregon State.
Co-captain Drouin (141) joined him in the finals, opting for a different path as he recorded an 11-1 major decision over Westley Moniz of Portland State and a 4-2 decision against Adin Duenas of Cal State Fullerton.
The Sun Devil freshmen found success in the tournament as well.
Eric Starks (174) led the group, winning by default over Tyler Bernacchi of UC Davis followed by a 5-3 decision over Jason Points of CSB.
Starks lost his championship bout, however, to No. 12 Nate Lee of Boise State, 5-2, and finished second.
Freshmen Te Edwards (157) and Kyle DeBerry (165) also recorded victories Sunday, with Edwards’ defeating Sam Barnhart of CSB, 11-3, before falling to No. 6 Adam Hall of BSU, 11-4. He did, however, recover from this defeat with a 5-3 decision over Portland State’s Alex Bubb in the consolation bracket.
Edwards then won a 10-8 decision over Joe Davis of UCD to take fifth place.
DeBerry recorded a 9-0 major decision over Dustin Noack of UCD before falling to Stanford’s Nick Amuchastegui 12-4. DeBerry finished the championships in fifth place.
Reach the reporter at joshua.spivack@asu.edu.
