Tyler Cowger placed first and Wade Paulus was second at the 2013 Junior Greco World Duals
held May 25-26 in Concord, Calif., east of San Francisco,
The event drew wrestlers from Sweden, Norway, Honduras, California, and USA wrestlers from across the country, including a team of top Oregon wrestlers.
Cowger won the 154-pound division, while Paulus was second at 216 pounds.
“I had good matches,” Cowger said. “One guy was a four-time All-American who had won the Mexican nationals.
“All my matches were pretty close, pretty tight. The kid from Sweden was really good for me.”
Paulus lost in the finals to a wrestlers from Honduras who, the two said, placed high in the PanAm games.
“He’s the only guy I’ve seen who could pick Wade up,” Cowger said. “He was a big guy.”
The Oregon team won the dual competition for the second straight year and Paulus said that was one of their goals.
“It’s always fun to wrestle different people from different countries and see different styles and that kind of stuff,” he said. “In the finals, the kid was better than me. It was the worlds. I expected the best the countries could send.”
Cowger, who has signed to wrestle at Southern Oregon, said he has trained hard this year and that has led to the success he’s enjoyed, including a triple crown this season.
“I don’t know if could have done it without working my butt off this year,” he said. “I just kind of outworked everybody.”
He said the trip also included a visit to San Francisco and Chinatown – his first.
“That was nice,” Cowger said.