By John Shinn
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State couldn't have been closer Tuesday night in wrestling's first edition of Bedlam at Howard McCasland Field House.
So close, a 16-16 draw was the final decision.
"What do they say? A tie is like kissing your sister. I don't feel like that," OU coach Jack Spates said. "The reason is this: Our guys came to wrestle and wrestled hard. Their guys wrestle hard.
"It was a show. It was Bedlam."
Momentum was sparse with neither team taking more than a four-point lead throughout the dual.
OU got one bonus-point victory with Jeff James scoring a 14-5 major decision over Chris McNeil at 174 pounds. The Cowboys got theirs with in the following match when Clayton Foster topped Erich Schmidtke 17-5 at 184.
Everything else came down to the final period and beyond.
"I'm not surprised by the dual," OSU coach John Smith said after the first tie between the teams since Nov. 30, 1999. "I feel fortunate that we got out of here with a tie."
The Sooners (4-0-1 in duals) scored two upsets to keep their Bedlam home-mat unbeaten string to three years.
At 197, Eric Lapotsky, who was named the Big 12's wrestler of the month for November earlier in the day, stunned second-ranked Alan Gelogaev for a 10-4 victory.
It was a weight the Cowboys entered thinking they had a pretty good shot at winning. But Lapotsky dominated the final period, scoring three points in the final 71 seconds and gaining another point for riding time.
"I really didn't try to think too much about it," Lapotsky said. "I just went out there like I wrestled every day in practice and it worked."
It could have been the springboard to a Sooner victory.
The match of the night was at heavyweight where OSU's Jared Rosholt and OU's Eric Fernandez battled through two overtimes before Rosholt, who is ranked No. 2 in the weight class, claimed a 4-3 victory due to 14 seconds of riding time.
It was one of the matches the Cowboys hoped they could get bonus points out of. Instead they had to scratch out a simple decision.
The Sooners, however, got a huge upset at 125 pounds. Freshman Jarrod Patterson was scheduled to redshirt this season, but Spates put him on the mat to face OSU's Chris Notte.
The two had met in early November at the Oklahoma City University Tournament. Notte claimed a convincing major decision.
Patterson erased that loss from his memory.
"Being my first match, there were some butterflies," Patterson said. "As soon as I started wrestling, it felt like a normal match."
The loudest the arena got came when Patterson scored a takedown with 1 second left in the final period for a 6-3.
At the time, the Sooners held a 13-10 advantage with three bouts to go.
The Cowboys rallied.
Jordan Oliver scored an 8-2 victory Alex Ekstrom to make it 13-13. Jamal Parks followed with a 5-3 win over Zack Bailey at 141 to put the Cowboys up 16-13.
Good for OU, it had Kyle Terry, the defending Big 12 champion, going at 149. It was tight through two periods, but Terry scored an escape and takedown in the final period to take a 6-3 victory seal the dual tie.
John Shinn 366-3536 jshinn@normantranscript.com
