A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019
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COLLEGE WRESTLING
COLEMAN WINS
PAC-12 TITLE
Oregon State junior will
compete at the NCAA
Championships at 184 lbs
By ANNIE FOWLER
STAFF WRITER
A
s a freshman at
Oregon State Uni-
versity, Bob Cole-
man posted a 6-26
record. There was
a time when he
didn’t win a match for two months.
For the 2016 state wrestling
champion from Hermiston High
School, it was a hard pill to swal-
low, but he knew there would be a
learning curve from high school to
college.
Fast forward two years.
Coleman, 20, won the Pac-12
184-pound title Saturday at Wells
Fargo Arena in Tempe, Ariz., and
punched his ticket to the NCAA
Championships.
“I was just honored to get the
opportunity,” Coleman said. “Win-
ning a Pac-12 title is not something
I expected when I started at Oregon
State. To win it is out of this world.
It still hasn’t sunk in.”
All told, Oregon State won four
titles and will send six men to the
NCAA Championships on March
21-23 at PPG Paints Arena in
Pittsburgh.
Tournament brackets will be
announced on Wednesday. Each of
the 10 weight classes will consist of
a 33-man bracket. The top eight in
each weight class will be honored as
All-Americans.
It’s the fi rst Pac-12 title for Cole-
man (16-14), who won a tight con-
test in the semifi nals against Jaen
Petersen of Arizona State by a 9-7
decision. He then faced Judah Duhm
of Stanford in the fi nals, winning
4-2 and qualifying for the NCAAs.
Coleman, a 5-foot-11 junior, lost
to Petersen in their Jan. 20 Pac-12
match.
“When I wrestled him in the dual,
I had a bunch of mistakes I could
fi x,” Coleman said. “The Stan-
ford kid upset the No. 1 seed (Dom
Ducharme of Cal-State Bakersfi eld)
on the other side of the bracket in
overtime.”
In the championship match
against Duhm, the bout was score-
less after the fi rst round, and in the
second, Coleman took a 2-0 lead
with an escape and a technical vio-
lation by Duhm.
Duhm got an escape with 1:30
left in the third round, but Cole-
man registered a takedown with 57
seconds remaining for a 4-1 lead.
Duhm got a late escape for the 4-2
fi nal.
Coleman was able to share his
victory with his parents Janna and
Craig, and other family members.
“Mom had to take all these pho-
tos so there was proof it happened,”
Coleman said with a laugh. “They
booked their tickets to nationals this
morning.”
If Coleman had not won the title,
he would not have advanced to
nationals. The Pac-12 does not have
enough teams to earn extra berths,
unless wrestlers are highly ranked.
“Wrestling on the West Coast
is not like it is on the East Coast,”
Coleman said. “There are not a lot
of schools out west.”
A familiar face
Coleman might run into former
Hermiston teammate Sam Colbray
at the NCAAs, depending on the
bracketing. Colbray was second in
the Big 12 Championships at 184
pounds for Iowa State to earn his
trip.
The two met once already this
season. Coleman wrestled Colbray
on Feb. 11, in a nonleague dual in
which Iowa State made the trip to
Corvallis. Coleman suffered a 13-4
loss.
“The fi rst time I wrestled Sam
was in an exhibition match in junior
high,” Coleman said. “He beat me
then, too. He has always been a
weight above me and got the best of
me. As far as accolades go, he has
everything. I was just his practice
partner.”
It might not seem odd for two for-
mer high school teammates to meet
on the mat in college, but Coleman
said it doesn’t happen often.
“It’s a big deal in collegiate wres-
tling,” he said. “Especially two guys
from the same high school, at the
same weight. The Pac-12 announcer
said it was a fi rst for him. It’s pretty
cool. It was good to wrestle Sam
and see how far I’ve come.”
Starting young
Coleman began his wrestling
career in the third grade, but it
wasn’t until his junior year of high
school that he started to dominate.
“My junior year, I got to work
with Kyle Larson every day,” he
said. “(Then coach) Shawn Wil-
liams helped me develop my skills
and that made the difference.”
Coleman fi nished second at the
5A state tournament at 170 pounds
his junior year, and posted a 26-5
record.
As a senior, he beat Crater’s
Cavin Gillispie 6-2 to win the 182-
pound title. He fi nished with a 43-2
record, and the Bulldogs won the
state team title.
The college life
Coleman joined the ranks of
Hermiston wrestlers past and pres-
ent at OSU in the fall of 2016.
He earned his place in the lineup
and has taken his share of beatings.
“I have started for three years, but
I have taken a lot of lashes,” he said.
“Now, I’m going to the NCAAs.
It has been surreal. Growing up in
Hermiston, you look up to a lot of
guys. Jeremy Larson and Joey Del-
gado won Pac-12 titles. I’m on the
same playing fi eld as them now, but
I don’t think I belong there.”
It gets better than that.
Coleman, Colbray and Tyler
Berger (who transferred to Crook
County his senior year) were all
starters in the lineup at Hermiston
from their freshman year on up.
Now, all of them will be at
the NCAAs. Berger, a senior at
Nebraska, will be making his fourth
appearance at 157 pounds.
“That’s pretty good for a town of
17,000,” Coleman said.
College wrestling also has given
Coleman a chance to see a lot of the
United States, which he appreciates.
“Just to get the opportunity to
wrestle in college is surreal,” he
said. “To get to travel the the U.S.
because of the sport is awesome.”
Even it if means shorter holiday
breaks.
In late December, Coleman com-
peted in the Ken Kraft Midlands
Championships in Chicago.
He opened the tournament with
a 9-4 win over Penn’s Jalen Laugh-
lin, then recorded an 11-4 decision
over Princeton’s Kendall Elfstrum.
He then would lose in the quarter-
fi nals and in his consolation match.
“I had a four-day Christmas
break, and everyone else had a
month,” he said. “There are a lot of
tournaments on the East Coast and
it’s a heck of an opportunity.”
Coleman, who arrived at OSU
with 60 college credits in his pocket,
will graduate in the spring with a
degree in agricultural business. With
one season of wrestling still avail-
able, he’s not sure if he will return.
“We’ll see after nationals,” he
said.
Oregon State’s Bob Coleman gets his
hand raised after beating Stanford’s
Judah Duhm 4-2 for the 184-pound
title at the Pac-12 Championships on
Saturday in Tempe, Ariz.
Photo courtesy of
Peter Vander Stoep/Pac-12
Hermiston trio to play in basketball All-Star Classic
By ANNIE FOWLER
STAFF WRITER
The basketball season
continues for a trio of Herm-
iston seniors.
Jordan Thomas, Ryne
Andreason and Cesar Ortiz
will play in the SWX All-Star
Classic set for March 24, at
Yakima Valley Community
College.
The girls game will be
played at 4 p.m., followed by
the boys game.
Admission is $5 for adults
and $3 for students, seniors
and military.
The 6-foot-5 Thomas was
a fi rst-team all-Mid-Colum-
bia Conference selection.
She averaged 15.53 points
a game for the Bulldogs,
which ranked second in the
conference.
Andreason, a second-team
MCC pick, averaged 17
points a game for Hermiston,
which earned the league top
3A seed to regionals.
Ortiz, an honorable men-
tion selection, averaged 13.5
points a game, with a season
high of 25 points.
The All-Star game was
fi rst held in 1994, and contin-
ued for 22 years until taking a
break in 2016-17.
This is the second time
Andreason has played in the
game. He had eight points
and six rebounds in last
year’s game — a 131-106
loss to Yakima.
For the Hermiston girls,
recent players include Sara
Ramirez (2015) and Maddy
Juul (2018).