OSU senior Clayton Foster was pinned in the 197-pound title bout to finish as the national runner-up.
Oliver dominated Hochstrasser from the start, overwhelming the Bronco with a double-leg takedown in the opening seconds to take a 2-0 lead. A Hochstrasser escape was followed by a four-point move from Oliver to push the Cowboy’s edge to 6-1 before Hochstrasser knew what hit him. Oliver cut Hochstrasser loose and took a 6-2 lead into the second period. Oliver chose a neutral start to the second and bagged another takedown to put the bout out of reach. Hochstrasser again escaped to trim Oliver’s advantage to 8-3, but it was too late. A Hochstrasser escape to start the third period capped the scoring at 8-4.
“My mindset was to put points on the board right away, thinking if I scored right away, the pace of the match and the tempo would have to pick up because he would have to attack me,” Oliver said. “I never stopped attacking, but it opened up things more for me to get to my double and my leg attacks.”
OSU coach John Smith applauded Oliver’s performance on the biggest stage.
“Takedowns were the key for Jordan. He has a lot of offense,” Smith said. “I think he is focused on maintaining pressure and separating from the field as he goes forward, which is hard to do.”
Oliver, who tweaked his knee in the first period of Friday’s semifinal win over No. 4 Tyler Graff of Wisconsin, said the knee was bothering him in the title bout, but he was determined to power through the pain.
“I don’t even think it has set in yet but I just know it’s been a great journey,” Oliver said. “A lot of hard work and dedication has gone into it and also a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I don’t regret a minute of it.
“Oklahoma State is an awesome program with 34 NCAA titles. We wanted to make it 35, but it didn’t work out this time. The coaches are such a positive influence here and having resources like John Smith, Eric Guerrero, Tyrone Lewis and Kenny Monday around helps so much in preparation.”
Foster raced out to a 5-1 lead in his title match against Kilgore after bagging a pair of first-period takedowns and escaping to start the second, but Kilgore made the most of a scramble opportunity and caught the Cowboy on his back for the fall with just four seconds left in the second period.
“I hurt for Clayton because I really wanted to see him get an NCAA title,” Smith said. “He had a good first period but got a little sloppy in the second. He had the match under control.”
Smith assessed the team’s overall showing at the NCAA Championships.
“It was important that this team got a trophy because it is a step in the right direction,” Smith said. “You always want to do better and this was no different. There is only one time in my 20 years of coaching that I felt like we couldn’t do better and that was in 2005 when we had five national champs.”
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