Season Wrap-Up

Oregon State Wrestling Fans,

The 2019-20 has ground to an abrupt halt due to the Covid-19 virus. The last you may have heard was the Pac-12's had finished and we had one Champ - Devan Turner at 133, and two wrestlers headed to the NCAA's, Devan and Grant Willits who finished second at 141. That was March 7.

On March 10, the Athletic Department announced that Head Coach Jim Zalesky would be leaving at the end of the season and they would hold a national search to find Jim's replacement. The FALL Fan Club would like to thank Jim and Teri for their years of heading up the Oregon State Family of Wrestling and for their friendship. We enjoyed that long string of Conference Team Championships!!

On March 12, NCAA seeds and brackets were announced. Devan would be #12 and Grant picked up #29.

Somewhere in there, the NCAA decided that the championships would be played out, but without fans in attendance, due to the virus pandemic. A little further thinking resulted in a follow-up decision on March 12 that all tournaments and even spring sports would be cancelled. So, the NCAA's will just be an asterisk in the books. We'll never know how Devan and Grant would have done.

On March 15, Amar Dhesi qualified for a spot on the Canadian Olympic team in Tokyo this summer. You can see of video of a very happy Amar Dhesi on the OSU Twitter feed. Let's hope the Olympics will be able to go ahead as scheduled. Congrats, Amar, and best of luck to you!

The only other thing left of the usual wrestling season would have been the Annual Awards Banquet. The FALL Board had started making plans and the date was penciled in on April 4. However with all the practices in place to "flatten the curve" of the Covid-19 virus, planning became impossible, so the decision was made to cancel the Banquet and the season has come to an end.

Thanks to all the new Board members who stepped forward to make the FALL Fan Club carry on this season, Michael Denison - hope you are doing well on recovery, Michael! - John Kowalewski, Jim Hamer*, Scott Lewis, and Jess Lewis headed up by President Jana Iwasaki.

Go Beavs!

Elizabeth DeAngelis

"The FALL"
Official Fan Club of OS Wrestling
* Jim Hamer's name was omitted  in the original email. My apologies for the error.