Oklahoma State University Athletics
OSU vs. OU postmatch quotes
February 18, 2001 | Cowboy Wrestling
Feb. 18, 2001
OSU Coach John Smith
On the crowd
"It was fantastic. That is something we really enjoyed seeing and wrestling in front of. It takes a little to get used to. I don't know how well we wrestled tonight, I have mixed emotions. I thought we looked pretty good at times. This is the kind of preparation that helps us for nationals, being able to wrestle in front of these kinds of numbers. At nationals you are going to get these kinds of numbers, and it is something you have to get used to."
On Johnny Thompson's win
"When you get momentum going like that you are concerned because you have to send out a freshman to get the job done. Johnny Thompson came out and executed a tough match. He really needed to turn things around and let us know that we could win a match. It was something that was needed at the time. Their (OU) strength and power in (Michael) Lightner was coming up. It was an important win at an important time in the duel meet."
On Daniel Cormier's pin
"We still had two more matches after that and my heart fluttered a little when Daniel Cormier got in that cradle. My heart stopped for about three seconds there. You don't teach that defense of what he did. That is just the pure athletic ability of getting himself out of what didn't look good. He (Cormier) was tight and made a good decision of which way to roll there and got himself in a position to where he could get the reversal. Once he got the reversal he slapped him (Josh Lambrecht) in a position to where he could get the pin."
Oklahoma Head Coach Jack Spates
Opening Statement
"I think, for the most part, we wrestled well. We wrestled really hard. You want to give yourself an opportunity to win, and I thought that we did that. We won at heavyweight. I new that was going to be a tough match. Matt Ridings came out against an outstanding opponent (Matt Brown) and was really close to getting a major decision. We had the ball rolling at that time. Witt Durden was competitive, but came up short at the end. We were still in the match after that loss, but just came up short at the end. We knew that we were probably going to have to win six matches to win today."
Oklahoma Wrestlers
Matt Ridings
On His Second Period Takedown
"I was just trying to get behind him and score two points, and he just brought his head to his knee. I just locked the cradle up. I saw it and went for it, and luckily I was able to catch him on his back and hold him there for the rest of the period."
Michael Lightner
On His Last Bedlam Match
"It doesn't get any better than this, especially in college wrestling. With ten thousand people out there today, most of them Oklahomans, made it a really good feeling. It was a great environment. Even though we lost the match, I will always have a good memory about Bedlam matches.
OSU Wrestler Daniel Cormier
"We wrestled hard. They came in here with a strategy of keeping these matches close and trying to take them at the end. We just wrestled hard. In a lot of those matches you could see that we wrestled hard enough to pull it off. Basically, what we wanted to do was keep up the intensity and not give up those matches that we were supposed to win. On my part, I got in a pretty good position and ended up finishing the match."
On whether he had thought about a pin beforehand
"You always want the pin. I always try to pin. You get off the mat faster, plus it just looks a lot better to get a fall."
On the cradle
"I get put in cradles a lot because when I stand up sometimes I leave my head by my knees. I get caught in inside cradles a lot. I got caught by Sanderson in it last year in Stillwater. He just couldn't score enough points, and I almost caught him on his back actually. So I don't get too nervous whenever they get me in an inside cradle because most times guys get so anxious that they over pursue it and then they end up in bad positions."
