Cardinal wrestling had a successful weekend with Sunday wins over conference foe Cal Poly (1-10, 0-1 Pac-12) and non-conference opponent Air Force (4-3, 0-1 WWC). With the victories, Stanford improved to 7-2 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
Six of Stanford’s 10 wrestlers in the starting lineup won both of their bouts on the day, with sophomore heavyweight Nathan Butler having a particularly impressive showing, posting a 9-0 major decision over Nicolas Johnson of Cal Poly before bringing down Marcus Malecek of Air Force in a 6-1 decision.
Butler improved to 24-6 overall this season and has the highest win total on the team. He has started at heavyweight in all of the Cardinal’s duals this season apart from the team’s loss at No. 8 Oregon State.
Junior Jim Wilson at 165 and sophomore Connor Schram at 133 also had superb days and easily coasted to victories in each of their bouts. With his wins, Wilson stretched his winning streak to five bouts, tops on the team. Wilson, the 14th-ranked wrestler in his weight class in the country, currently has the highest win percentage on the team with his 23-4 overall record.
Butler, Wilson and Schram improved their dual records to 7-1, 7-1 and 8-1, respectively, which are all best on the team. Schram has been particularly impressive as the every-meet starter at 133 this season after the departure of the storied Ryan Mango ’14, the team’s key cog at 133, from the program at the end of last season.
Stanford will next take on Arizona State on Sunday in the team’s final dual meet at Maples of the season. The meet will begin at 11 a.m. and will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.