Brothers Boris and Filip Novachkov, Chase Pami, Nick Fisher and Ryan Smith will wrestle for Pac-10 titles Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. after all five Mustangs won their first two bouts Friday.
Steve Vasquez at 165 pounds, Ryan DesRoches at 174 and Kelan Bragg at 184 all need two wins Saturday to secure third-place finishes while Micah Ferguson at 125 and Jim Powers at 285 will wrestle for seventh place.
Pami, seeking his third consecutive Pac-10 championship but seeded second this year, defeated Trevor Machado-Ching of UC Davis 15-6 and No. 3 Keegan Davis of Oregon State 15-3 for his 11th and 12th major decisions of the season.
Pami, now 25-5, will face top-seeded Adam Hall of Boise State in the 157-pound finals. They have met five times in the last two years and Pami’s lone victory was a 4-3 overtime decision in last year’s Pac-10 finals.
Boris Novachkov, seeded third at 133 earned a 6-1 decision over Aaron Navarrete of Cal State Fullerton and a 6-0 decision over No. 2 Kelly Kubec of Oregon State to reach the finals against top-seeded Brandon Low of UC Davis.
Andrew Hochstrasser of Boise State was expected to be the top seed, but he is academically ineligible for the current semester. Low beat Novachkov 6-3 in a dual meet Feb. 12. Novachkov is now 23-3 on the year.
Seeded No. 2 at 141, Filip Novachkov recorded a 16-5 major decision against Bryan Osuna of UC Davis and edged Chris Drouin of Arizona State 4-2.
But Novachkov (23-5) will not face the top seed in the final as Levi Jones of Boise State was upset by No. 4 Adin Duenas of Cal State Fullerton in overtime, 3-1. Novachkov beat Duenas with a 13-7 decision in a dual meet on Nov. 14.
Both Novachkovs have one third-place Pac-10 finish to their credit.
Fisher is perhaps the biggest surprise of the tournament. The fourth seed at 149 pounds earned an 18-2 technical fall over No. 5 Nicholas Jordan of Cal State Fullerton, then upset top-seeded Jason Chamberlain of Boise State by pinning the Bronco in 4 minutes, 24 seconds.
Chamberlain had beaten Fisher 11-6 in a Jan. 24 dual meet. Fisher (17-5) will take on No. 2 Barrett Abel of UC Davis in the finals. In another dual meet this season, Abel had to default to Fisher due to an injury. Abel was leading 6-3 in the second period when he suffered a neck injury and briefly lost consciousness.
At 197, Smith (pictured above), seeded third, pinned Ethan Weisrock of Cal State Fullerton in 1:50, then upset No. 2 Chad Hanke of Oregon State 7-6. Hanke beat Smith 8-3 and 3-1 in earlier matches this season.
In the finals, Smith (19-10) will face top-seeded Riley Orozco of Cal State Bakersfield. Orozco owns 9-4 and 3-1 decisions over Smith this season as well as a 13-3 major decision in the 2009 Pac-10 Championships.
Vasquez, DesRoches and Bragg all split their two matches Friday while Ferguson and Powers went 0-2.
DesRoches (32-8), seeded No. 3 at 174 and ranked in the top 20 in the nation in several polls, pinned Eric Starks of Arizona State in 6:12, then lost a 7-6 decision to No. 2 Nathan Lee in the semifinals.
With five wrestlers in the championship finals, Cal Poly has 108.5 points while Oregon State, with four in the finals, has 102 points. Two-time defending conference champion Boise State is third with 97.5 points and has three wrestlers in the finals.
Coach John Azevedo’s Mustangs have never captured the Pac-10 championship, settling for second-place finishes in 2004 and 2006. Cal Poly, sixth the last two years, was 5-2 in conference dual meets this season, third in the Pac-10.
Action resumes Saturday at noon with the consolation semifinals and fifth- and seventh-place matches. The championship finals will begin at 4 p.m.
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