LARAMIE, Wyo. (Nov. 1, 2018) – The Wyoming wrestling team opens its 2018-19 season this Saturday when it hosts the Cowboy Open. Action is set to start at 9 a.m. MT at War Memorial Fieldhouse.
 
About the Cowboy Open
The Cowboy Open has been an essential part of the Cowboy Wrestling program for decades. The first-ever Cowboy Open took place in 1974 under head coach Joe Dowler. With the exception of four seasons, the Pokes have hosted the event every year since. This year marks the 29th-straight season that Wyoming has hosted the tournament.
 
Parking Information
With the Cowboy football team set to host San Jose State on Saturday at noon, parking will be a little different than most home wrestling events. Fans are encouraged to park in upper X lot by the UW Animal Science building or the VA lot located north of the UW Visual Arts building off 22^nd and Armory. Please see the attached map.
 
Follow the Event
Streaming for Saturday's tournament will be available for a fee at flowrestling.org. Free live scores and brackets will be available at arena.flowrestlong.org.
 
About the Cowboys
Ranked No. 22 nationally by the NWCA heading into the season, as head coach Mark Branch returns three NCAA qualifiers from a season ago including All-American Montorie Bridges.
 
Last season, the Cowboys finished in fourth at the Big 12 Championships with two individual conference champions in Bryce Meredith and Archie Colgan. The finish was the highest for a Wyoming team since joining the Big 12 in 2015, and was enough to earn Branch a Coach of the Year nod from the league's coaches.
 
At the NCAA Championships, Bridges became the program's second freshman All-American, finishing eighth at 133 pounds while Meredith added his second NCAA finals appearance at 141 pounds. As a team, Wyoming tallied its best finish under branch as the Cowboys placed 17th. It was the 20th top-25 finish and third in a row for the Brown and Gold.
 
Quotable: Head Coach Mark Branch
"I like where we're at. We've had some good workouts here leading up to this weekend and the young guys have really shown a lot of toughness and scrap in the room, so that's been good. It's just been exciting. As a head coach—and not a new head coach anymore—little things like that excite me about the unknown. We do have to replace a lot of guys in our lineup, but also some really solid guys that have done some great things for this program. Instead of being scared or anxious, I've been excited and it's going to be fun to watch them go out and wrestle this weekend."
 
"This (weekend) is always such an evaluation process. I mean, obviously we want to compete well. This is a big event for us since we host it and we get all of the families in here. Pretty much everybody comes to the Cowboy Open. You want to represent yourself well, but we're excited to come out next week and see what we learned. We met at the beginning of this week—my staff and I—and we asked ourselves if there was anything we were missing that seems really crucial that we cover before this weekend. Everybody just kind of stood around with a blank stare. I just think we need to wrestle, and then we'll have our answers about what we need to do. We just want to go out and wrestle hard. I want to see the fight that we have and get to work. That's really when you can go to work because we always have so many answers after this tournament."
 
Looking Back: 2017 Cowboy Open
A busy Saturday was capped with five individual championships in two divisions at the 40th annual Cowboy Open. In the elite bracket, junior Branson Ashworth—the tournament's Most Outstanding Wrestler—and senior Chaz Polson captured titles at 165 and 184 pounds, respectively, while freshmen Hayden Hastings, Carless Looney and Cale Davidson brought home titles in the amateur bracket.