TULSA — Dustin Plott didn’t want to miss his bedtime.
An opportunity to open the Big 12 finals with its first match and a win eliminated any chance of that.
Plott, OSU’s 174-pounder, earned his second straight Big 12 title with a 5-3 triumph over Missouri’s Peyton Mocco on Sunday night at the BOK Center in Tulsa.
Dustin Plott goes back to back at Big 12s. 5-3 win over Missouri’s Peyton Mocco. Sealed it with a late takedown. #OkState
— Adam Engel (@AdamEngel9) March 6, 2023
His 8 p.m. final put Plott close to his bedtime, he said, but the aggressiveness showed.
“I was like, ‘Man, I’m gonna need some caffeine wrestling at 9 or 10 o’clock at night,” Plott said.
Plott beat Mocco in last year’s final and avenged a February loss on Sunday night. Plott said he understood the situation and focused on scoring the next point. He scored a late takedown with less than 10 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
“I’ve been down before,” he said. “I’ve been down worse and it’s just wrestling."
Plott’s victory was the second for OSU in Sunday’s finals. Daton Fix won his fourth straight Big 12 title at 133 pounds.
“I thought for the most part in his whole tournament, there was a level of demeanor that you’ve been trying to beat into him all season long,” OSU coach John Smith said of Plott. “I thought his final match wasn’t necessarily his best match but just kinda a guy that was going to get his hand raised somehow. That’s what you like to see."
Missouri won the team title for its second straight year while OSU finished runner-up. The Cowboys pushed through three dual losses to its podium finish at the Big 12 championships. Plott’s win helped push the Cowboys beyond its third-place spot before the finals.
“I said it all season, especially at the start that this is going to be a challenging year,” Smith said. “I’ll just say they took on the challenge. I think we have worked as hard as any team I’ve coached and they responded with not a lot of complaints and not a lot of ‘Why are we doing this?’ They just did it."