Update: 125-pounder Casey Coulter (Grants Pass, Ore./Grants Pass) will get into the NAIA tournament with a wild-card bid.

Complete SOU Results

HAVRE, Mont. – For the second year in a row, the second-ranked Southern Oregon University wrestling team pushed 11 individuals through to the NAIA Championships and won three titles Saturday at the Western Region Qualifying Tournament.

It took every one of those qualifiers for the Raiders to defend their Western Region title. They won it for the sixth time in seven years with a team score of 158.5, edging out third-ranked Great Falls (Mont.), which amassed 154 points. Third-place Embry-Riddle (Ariz.) was well behind with 94 points, Menlo had 93.5 and Montana State-Northern, the fifth-ranked host, came in with three tops seeds but fell to fifth place (83.5).

SOU possessed four top seeds and three of them won titles: 149-pounder Tyler Cowger (Sweet Home, Ore./Sweet Home), 157-pounder Dalton Urrutia (Lebanon, Ore./Lebanon) and 174-pounder Brock Gutches (Central Point, Ore./Crater), who remained unbeaten in four years at the qualifier.

All three championship wins were against Great Falls opponents.

"It was a war," said Raider coach Mike Ritchey, who has won 13 regional titles since taking over in 1995. "We knew it was going to be tough and we had to get intense to pull it off."

Those who finished in the top four of their brackets moved onto the NAIA tournament, which will take place in Topeka, Kan., on March 6-7.

SOU's runners-up were Ryan McWatters (Hesperia, Calif./Sultana) (184) and Taylor Johnson (Redmond, Ore./Redmond) (197). Four Raiders won third-place matches: Devin Poppen (Oregon City, Ore./Oregon City) (133), Garrett Urrutia (Lebanon, Ore./Lebanon) (165), Jacob Abrams (The Dalles, Ore./The Dalles-Wahtonka) (184) and Clayton Burtis (Colton, Ore./Colton) (285). Reed Tennyson (Dillingham, Alaska/Dillingham) (174) got by with a fourth-place finish.

Casey Coulter (Grants Pass, Ore./Grants Pass), who was fifth at 125 pounds, was granted a wild-card berth to the NAIA tournament.

Cowger, ranked fourth in the NAIA at 149, improved to 26-7 with four wins, including three with bonus points. He shut out his first opponent (8-0), Kyle Leir of Great Falls, and won by the same score in the championship against Ryan Martin of Great Falls. In between he pinned Simpson's Blaine Lindahl in the quarters and got Embry-Riddle's Anton King in the semis, 6-1.

Dalton Urrutia (Lebanon, Ore./Lebanon) won the second Western Region title of his career, though the last was earned in 2012. Two decisions got him to the finals – over MSU-Northern's Tommy Cooper (12-5) and Simpson's Richard Ortiz (4-0) – where he overpowered Great Falls' Chad Cebulski for a 9-4 victory.

Gutches, who will attempt to become the seventh wrestler in NAIA history to win four national titles, took a simpler path. He dominated Warner Pacific's Joe Dickinson, 15-4, then pinned Northern's Cole McArthur in the semis (4:56) and Shawn Lau in the finals (2:48). His record stands at 27-2, and his career postseason record is still perfect.

McWatters edged his teammate, Abrams, in the 184 semifinals, 5-4, and lost 2-1 to Embry-Riddle's Jose Cruz in the final. Johnson received a quarterfinal bye and pinned Simpson's Henry Campos in 2:58 to reach the 197 final. There, he lost a 9-6 decision to Northern's Garrett DeMers.

At 133, Poppen lost his first match before winning four straight, including three by fall. His third-place match was finished three seconds before the third-period buzzer in a pin of Menlo's Joel Palabrica. Garrett Urrutia (Lebanon, Ore./Lebanon) went 3-1, dropping a 5-4 quarterfinal decision to Menlo's Eric Lopez and winning his third-place match by injury default. Abrams bounced back from his loss to McWatters with a 3-2 win against Taylor Vaughn of Great Falls, and Burtis went 2-1 with a 5-2 win against Dylan Lemery of Great Falls for third.

Tennyson narrowly qualified winning his two matches on the day 6-4 in overtime and 6-5 in the consolation semis.

McWatters, Poppen and Tennyson are all first-time qualifiers.