Marysville’s Taleb Rahmani is pictured after winning the 2015 Division I 152-pound state championship at The Ohio State Univ ersity’s Schottenstein Center. Rahmani posted a 3-2 record during the recent NCAA tournament as a redshirt junior for the University of Pittsburgh.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
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Although the 2018-19 collegiate wrestling season ended sooner than Taleb Rahmani had hoped, it was still a very good campaign for the former Marysville High School state champion.
Rahmani, who won the 152-pound state title for the Monarchs four years ago, completed his redshirt junior season at the University of Pittsburgh during the recent NCAA tournament.
Rahmani (who competes in the collegiate 157-pound weight class) posted three victories during his five matches as the Panthers hosted the 2019 tournament.
The former Monarch grappler finished the season with a record of 19-8.
“Overall, it was a pretty solid season, but there were some ups and downs,” said Rahamani during a telephone interview on Sunday with the Journal-Tribune.
One of the highlights of Rahmani’s season was a fifth-place finish at the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas.
“That’s higher than I’ve ever placed there,” said Rahmani.
He also finished second in his weight class during the Athletic Coast Conference tournament.
One of the struggles the former Monarch experienced had to do with numbers on the scale.
“I let my weight get out of control a little bit during some breaks in the season,” he admitted. “I normally don’t get over 164 or 165 pounds, but at one point, I went up to 171.
“Because of that, I lost a couple of matches that I felt I should have won,” said Rahmani. “I was able to get my weight back under control after that.”
Rahamani said the success he experienced at the NCAA tournament was due to what he called some “funky positions.
“I put on a lot of scrambles and came out on top of my opponents,” he said.
Rahmani split his first two matches of the tournament last Thursday.
He went into the 157-pound matches as the No. 12 seed.
Rahmani dropped his first bout by a 7-1 verdict to Justin Thomas of the University of Oklahoma.
That dropped Rahmani into the consolation bracket of the double-elimination tournament.
He stayed alive with an 11-3 major decision over Oregon State’s Hunter Willis.
Rahmani began Friday’s portion of the tournament with a 7-1 triumph over Ohio State’s Ke-Shawn Hayes.
That was followed by an overtime pinfall against Griffin Parriott of Purdue.
Rahamani advanced to the “Round of 12” with that victory.
His season, though, came to an end on Friday evening with a 13-7 loss to Christian Pagdilao of Arizona State.
“I got thrown to my back during that last match when I tried to get him in a double under-leg,” said Rahmani. “It was just a heart-breaking loss.”
Had Rahmani been able to win the match, he would have automatically become the first Marysville High School wrestler to achieve All-American status in Division I.
“I just missed that,” he said.
Rahmani, who is studying to become a physician’s assistant, has one more year of mat competition left at Pittsburgh.
He has set a very lofty goal for 2019-2020… to become an NCAA national champion.
“I’m thinking nothing short of that,” he said.
What will Rahmani need to do in order to achieve national championship and All-American status?
“I have to become more solid in the basics,” he said. “I need to work harder on my set-ups and do quicker shots in order to make stronger finishes.”
Rahmani will return to the mat next month when he once again returns to Las Vegas and competes in a freestyle tournament.
Once he finishes his collegiate wrestling career and graduates (in the spring of 2020), he will continue to compete in freestyle matches.
“I plan on taking a ‘gap year’ and wrestle freestyle in Algeria (his father’s native country),” said Rahmani.
“After that, I will go on to grad school.”