Scott Swanson
After two second-place finishes in the high school state wrestling championships, Sweet Home’s Tyler Cowger decided he’d had enough of life as an also-ran.
“I knew I was making stupid mistakes, messing around,” said Cowger, who just finished his freshman wrestling season at Southern Oregon University. “That’s when I got dedicated.”
Dedicated meant lifting weights, running, wrestling with anybody willing to drill at all hours, and participating in off-season tournaments and camps.
“Dedicated, for me, was kind of being obsessed,” Cowger said. “When I was younger, I’d watch the clock. I’d do my moves and wait till I could get out of the wrestling room. During my senior year, and especially this year, every time I was in the wrestling room I wanted to learn.”
It paid off. Cowger finally won a state title with a dominating performance as a senior, and signed to wrestle at SOU. He fully expected to redshirt as a freshman.
Instead, he not only cracked the starting line-up, dislodging more experienced wrestlers, but he made the NAIA national tournament and finished fifth – an All-American as a freshman.
It was quite a journey and even Cowger seems a little blown away by how it played out.
“I figured I would challenge until I lost, then redshirt,” he said of the process by which the starting line-up is established. “Nobody had faith in me. The first part of the season I was still a high school wrestler, still making high school mistakes and losing to experienced college guys.”
Steve Thorpe, his coach at Sweet Home, said that’s what sets Cowger apart from others, who are happy to be wrestling in college.
“He put himself into situations with guys who could beat him, who could push him.The way he works and the opportunities he’s been given at Southern, he’ll take advantage of that and continue to get better.”
One thing Cowger learned upon arrival in the Raiders wrestling room is that nobody gets babied.
“The coaches don’t care about you. It’s not like high school. If you want to be successful, it’s on you. When I walked into the wrestling room on my recruiting trip, the coach pointed to the pictures of their All-Americans on the wall and said, ‘I can get you here, but you have to get yourself there.’”
The expected starter at 149 pounds, Justin Eldredge, who was ranked 12th in the nation in pre-season polls, wasn’t scheduled to join the team until winter quarter, so Cowger got to wrestle some early matches for Southern Oregon. He started winning – and turning heads.
“As people on the team started seeing that I was someone to be reckoned with, they started working with me,” he said.
When Eldredge returned to the mat in January, Cowger faced off with him for the chance to go to the Reno Tournament of Champions.
“Coach thought he would beat me but I ended up pinning him in the second round,” Cowger said. “I got my spot secured for the year.”
At that point his goals changed.
“Now my biggest thought this year was that I didn’t want to be like some of the guys who wrestle for a while, then leave, so they can say they wrestled in college. I wanted to go in there and be an All-American. That was right there on my goal sheet next to my door every day.”
By the time the Raiders reached the regional tournament at Menlo College, Cowger was the second-winningest wrestler for the Raiders at 25-11, behind two-time national champion Brock Gutches (31-3), and ranked 12th in the nation. But he lost to the wrestler he’d beaten 5-4 earlier in the season to gain that national ranking, Colin Merkley of Embry Riddle, and finished third in regionals. But since the top four regional finishers go, he was in, decisioning Jason Ladd of Menlo College 3-0 in the consolation finals.
At the national championships March 7-8 in Topeka, Kan. he found himself facing the No. 1-ranked wrestler in the nation at 149 pounds, Jake Ekster of Missouri Valley, who was 20-3 after losing in his own regional tournament.
“I got a text message from Steve Thorpe as I was going into the match. He said, ‘You know, this guy might be No. 1 but he might overlook you because you’re No. 12.’”
Cowger said he wrestled “my smartest match all year,” trailing Ekster 2-0 after the first round, but tying the score with second-period riding points and an escape in the third. In overtime, he caught Ekster with an outside single-leg attack and got a takedown.
“It was the ‘biggest upset of the day,’ they called it,” Cowger recalled, with obvious satisfaction.
It changed his mentality as well.
“When we were tied 2-2, I was thinking in my head it wouldn’t be bad losing to the No. 1 guy in overtime. After that, I said, “I’m going to go out there and give it all I got.”
In the next round, he led 3-1 against No. 1-seeded Jake Williams of Cumberland Valley, when Williams, who went on to win the national title, got him in a scramble and pinned him 4:46 into the match.
But at that point Cowger could see All-American, which is awarded to the top eight, within reach.
That night he wrestled Menlo’s Jason Ladd, also a freshman, whom he’d beaten three times and lost once earlier this season. With a guaranteed All-American slot on the line, Cowger beat Ladd 2-0.
“We’re not Division I or anything big, but to be tops in the nation, that was incredible for me,” he said.
After that, the only direction was up and Cowger said he started to relax.
Facing Merkley, the Embry Riddle wrestler who’d pinned him in the regionals the week before, Cowger came away with a 7-2 decision.
“I didn’t have a care in the world. I figured I’d wrestle my match. I was already an All-American. He got pinned by his next opponent,
That got him into the fifth-place match against Morningside College’s Tyler Lashbrook, “one of those scary guys,” Cowger said. But Lashbrook suffered a hip injury midway through the match, which gave Cowger an opportunity.
“He got hurt so I kept going after him and staying on him and not giving him any breaks,” Cowger said. He won 5-2.
Southern Oregon placed fourth, a bit of a down year for the young Raiders, but Gutches (Crater High School), a junior, won his third national championship and junior Taylor Johnson (Redmond H.S.) claimed third place at 197 pounds, 125-pound redshirt freshman Jake Stigall (North Marion) was sixth, junior 184-pounder Jacob Abrams (The Dalles-Wahtonka) seventh and junior heavyweight Clayton Burtis (Colton) was eighth.
Cowger says his success in college started with the coaching he got from Thorpe and, particularly, Tomas Rosa, who wrestled at SOU himself and is comparable in size. He said he got a lot of preparation for the college mat from those two.
“Wrestling is a fight,” he said. “You have to get past that mental block of being beaten. The mental thing is not much different from being a senior in high school to being a freshman in college. In college you have to put in your own time to be good. It won’t be success on the coaches’ time.”
Thorpe said he wasn’t surprised to see Cowger crack the starting line-up this year.
“I thought he would see some varsity action and he’s consistent enough and hard-working enough that I knew once he got into the line-up, he’d stay there.
“As far as the national ranking and being an All-American, I totally expected that, but to do it as a true freshman, that’s incredible.”
He noted that Cowger is now the second Sweet Home alum to make All-American at the college level. The other is James Gourley, who was sixth at the junior college nationals in 2003.
“Now let’s see if he can get another one under his belt.” Thorpe said. “Now he carries a little bit of a reputation and as an All-American, he’s going to have a target on his back. College wrestling isn’t like high school. Nobody’s afraid of anybody.”
Cowger is now planning to wrestle at the U.S. Open April 17-19 in Las Vegas.
“I don’t want to sound high and mighty, but I’m not satisfied with fifth place. I took two or three days off, and then I’ve been hitting the mat ever since and hitting the weights. I want to be bigger and stronger.
“Watching the national finals from the stands is not a fun place to be. I want to be on the mat next year.”