COLUMBUS — No. 6 Ohio State opened its 2026-27 dual season Sunday with a 34-10 win over Columbia at the Covelli Center, winning seven of the 10 bouts in front of 3,364 fans, according to Ohio State athletics.
The Buckeyes (1-0) trailed early when Columbia’s Sulayman Bah beat No. 14 Vinny Kilkeary 9-3 at 125 pounds, but No. 2 Ben Davino answered immediately at 133 with a 20-5 technical fall over Evin Gursoy, and Brogan Fielding followed with a 4-2 decision at 141 for his first career home dual victory, Ohio State reported.
The middle of the lineup turned a close dual into a rout. No. 4 Brandon Cannon pinned Rawson Iwanicki in 2:31 at 157, No. 12 Ethan Stiles rolled to a 22-6 technical fall at 165, and No. 6 Jaxon Smith added a 17-2 technical fall at 174 in his first Ohio State dual, stretching the team lead to 24-6.
Columbia (0-2) picked up its other wins at 149, where Lorenzo Frezza edged Maddox Shaw 6-5 in a bout briefly stopped for a Shaw injury check, and at 184, where Joe Curtis beat Carson Mize by major decision 13-4 in Mize’s dual debut, according to the official bout-by-bout account from Ohio State.
Ohio State closed the afternoon the way it built the lead — with bonus points. Ryder Rogotzke pinned Adam Haselius in 2:09 at 197, and No. 3 Nick Feldman finished the dual with a 16-4 major decision over No. 18 Vincent Mueller at heavyweight.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed is the shape of the opener: Ohio State won seven bouts, scored bonus points in five of them, and got winning debuts from Fielding and Smith. What is not yet known is how the lineup settles once the schedule stiffens — Kilkeary’s loss at 125 and Shaw’s close defeat at 149 are the two spots the coaching staff will be watching most closely on the road swing ahead.
The win continues a busy and successful weekend for Ohio State athletics in Columbus. On Saturday, the football Buckeyes beat Northwestern 28-19 at Ohio Stadium, and earlier this month Ohio State stunned No. 1 Wisconsin 2-1 for its second win over a top-ranked team this season.
For Columbia, the loss dropped the Lions to 0-2 on the young season. The Lions won three bouts and stayed competitive in the lower weights, but they had no answer once Ohio State’s ranked middleweights took the mat in sequence.
The Covelli Center crowd of 3,364 gave the Buckeyes a strong home start, and the bonus-point margin — two pins, three technical falls and a major decision among the seven wins — is the kind of scoring that decides tight duals later in the Big Ten season.
Ohio State’s seven wins were spread across the lineup — two at the lower weights, three in the middle and two at the top — which is the balance a dual-meet team needs over a long season, and Sunday’s result gives the Buckeyes a clean 1-0 start before the first road trip tests that balance.
What happens next: Ohio State hits the road for a pair of matches, Friday at NC State with a 7 p.m. start and next Sunday at Bellarmine at 2 p.m., Ohio State athletics announced. The Buckeyes’ performance in Raleigh will be the first real test of whether Sunday’s depth holds away from home.
The bout-by-bout timeline shows how quickly the dual flipped. Columbia led 3-0 after 125 and trailed by only three, 8-6, after Frezza’s win at 149. Then came the decisive run: Cannon’s pin at 157, Stiles’ technical fall at 165 and Smith’s technical fall at 174 — 16 team points across three bouts in a row — which pushed the margin to 24-6 and effectively settled the dual before the upper weights took the mat, according to Ohio State’s official scoring summary.
The opener also mattered because of who delivered it. Davino, ranked No. 2 at 133, set the technical-fall pace early; Cannon, ranked No. 4, produced the day’s fastest fall at 2:31; and Feldman, ranked No. 3, closed against a ranked opponent in Mueller. Three of Ohio State’s highest-ranked wrestlers all scored bonus points in the same dual, a marker the Buckeyes will measure themselves against when the competition level rises on the road.
Photo: dwhartwig, CC BY