KANSAS CITY, Mo. – For perhaps the first time this season, John Smith was deprived of his usual sense of comfort he endures during a Daton Fix match.
Smith, Oklahoma State’s 32nd-year coach, instead sat intently in his chair, adjacent to the edge of the mat as the top-seeded Fix, wrestled eighth-seeded Evan Frost of Iowa State in the 133-pound quarterfinals. A rematch of the 133 title match in the Big 12 Championships two weeks ago in Tulsa.
Except this one was closer.
“Part of it was he didn’t finish those single-leg (takedowns),” Smith said. “He was on (Frost’s) leg seven times.