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STILLWATER — All signs point to Sergio Vega moving up in weight for his sophomore season, and the weight class he is jumping into isn’t short on tough competition.
Vega won a national title as a true freshman last season at 141 pounds. He was the first undefeated true freshman national champ since 1947 — a stat Jax Forrest would join him in later that night. But not only did Vega go a perfect 24-0, he did so without giving up a takedown.
But being longer than many of the guys he was wrestling, Vega wasn’t long for the 141-pound division he found himself in.
“Really doesn’t weigh that much different than what he weighed last year,” OSU coach David Taylor said this week. “His body composition, I feel like, has changed. His love handles aren’t as much of love handles anymore. But, yeah, I feel like he’s just kind of maturing. I think you can kind of see it in his face and his body and his composition has matured. Just the way he approaches things. …
“I think 149 is a good weight class for him.”
The season doesn’t start for another month, but it’s going to be hard to imagine many more weight classes being as tough as 149 is at the top this season.
It looks as if three former national champs will be in the 149-pound field, with Vega joining Virginia Tech’s Caleb Henson (149-pound champ in 2024) and Stanford’s Aden Valencia (149-pound champ in 2026). On top of that, Penn State’s Shayne Van Ness returns after being the 149-pound bracket’s 1 seed last season before he lost in the NCAA final.
Taylor noted that this time last year, they weren’t sure whether Vega would wrestle or redshirt. Now he has vastly different expectations going into a season, but this isn’t the first time Vega is dealing with expectations of being among the best in the country.
Vega finished as the No. 7 wrestler on Flo’s big board for the 2025 class. He had wins at Fargo, Super 32 and Who’s Number One under his belt and went 140-2 with four state titles at Sunnyside (Arizona).
There also might not be as much of an “iron sharpens iron” sport than wrestling, and Taylor and Co. have a lot of premier iron in the Cowboy wrestling room for Vega to sharpen his skills against.
“What I think is cool about our guys, I think culturally our three returning national champs, they are three of our hardest-working guys in the room,” Taylor said. “By design, just continuing to keep them hungry and giving the perspective. Maybe you go to a different school where winning a national title is a surprise, well what do you do after that? It’s no surprise here. Our guys are expecting to come in here and win national titles, and we’ve laid that vision out for them. And not only to win once, but to win multiple times. …
“As they were having their success last year and post-success, like yeah, it hasn’t changed anything about them in terms of the way that they are training. And their all in really tough weight classes again, which is great for them to have those challenges, to keep them hungry. They have challenges in our room, which keep them hungry. It’s cool to see, just that culturally our guys that are having a lot of success are also our hardest-working guys that are trying to get better all the time.”
Read this original article at Pistols Firing Blog.
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