Four Beavers ranked in TOM's presason Top 20
OSU Athletic Communications
Corvallis, Ore. – Four Oregon State wrestlers earned top-20 preseason recognition from The Open Mat and the Beavers were ranked in the Associated Wrestling Press’s preseason Top 25 on Wednesday.
Sophomore heavyweight Amarveer Dhesi earned the highest individual ranking. The 2014 Pacific-12 Conference runner-up and an NCAA-tournament competitor, Dhesi was ranked No. 7.
Senior 184-pounder Taylor Meeks, another Pac-12 runner-up who also advanced to the NCAAs, was ranked No. 9.
Junior 133-pounder Joey Palmer was ranked 18th. He placed third at the Pac-12 championships and also advanced to NCAAs.
Senior 174-pounder Joe Latham was ranked 20th. He took second at the Pac-12 meet and advanced to NCAAs.
The Beavers were ranked No. 25 by the Associated Wrestling Press, which described them as “solid” from top to bottom and especially strong in the upper weights.
Five Beavers were ranked in the top 30 in their respective weight classes by AWP earlier this year: Dhesi (7); Meeks (10); Latham (18); 157-pounder Joey Delgado (28) and Palmer (29). Delgado was the 141-pound Pac-12 champion and an NCAA participant in 2014.
The Beavers open the season on Nov. 6 with their annual intrasquad meet at Gill Coliseum. They will compete at the Mike Clock Open in Forest Grove on Nov. 9, and then host Southern Oregon on Nov. 13 in their first counting dual.
The SOU match will be televised by the Pac-12 Network and could be a double-milestone night for the Beavers. A victory would give head coach Jim Zalesky his 100th career win at OSU and it would be the 1,000th win in program history.
For more information on the Oregon State wrestling team, follow the club’s official Twitter account at Twitter.com/OSU_Wrestling or by Facebook at Facebook.com/OregonStateWrestling.