Purdue's Matt Ramos stuns Iowa's Spencer Lee in semifinals at NCAA Championships

TULSA, Okla. — Spencer Lee's pursuit of a fourth national title came to a stunning end in Friday night's semifinal round at the NCAA Championships.

Lee, Iowa's star 125-pounder and three-time NCAA champion, was pinned by Purdue's Matt Ramos in the final moments of their semifinal match here at the BOK Center, a result that will go down as one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Wrestling history.

"We had a gameplan," Ramos said in an interview with ESPN's Quint Kessenich afterward. "We train for this every day. Spencer is the guy to beat at 125. I've been working for that. He's been in my head every single day. I've just been striving for it. I'm an All-American now. I'm in the national finals. You have to let it fly."

Ramos, a redshirt sophomore for the Boilermakers, led Lee 4-1 after taking Lee to his back for a takedown and two nearfall points in the first period. Lee rallied by scoring four back points for a 5-4 lead after choosing top in the second period. In the third, Lee scored a takedown on the edge to lead 7-4 with less than a minute remaining.

From there, Ramos quickly escaped, then took Lee to his back for a takedown with 30 seconds remaining there, tying the match at 7-7. Ramos then held Lee there for the pin, which was called with one second left on the clock.

"It's unreal, it hasn't really hit me," Ramos continued in his post-match interview. "I think manifesting it and speaking it into existence. I had an interview earlier, and I said I was ready for Spencer, and a lot of people were like, 'What makes you think you can beat him?'

"I work really hard and I trust in what I believe in. Being able to speak it out into existence — I'm not trying to be cocky or anything, but if I can't get it out into the world, I don't believe it'll happen. But with my training at Purdue, it'll come true."

These two had tangled in a wild match back in January, where Ramos took Lee down twice in the first period for an 8-1 lead. Lee responded by pinning Ramos before the first period was over, sparking Iowa's 37-6 win over Purdue.

Ramos has had a flare for dramatic finishes all week. After a 3-2 first-round win, he outlasted N.C. State's Jarrett Trombley, 6-5 in tiebreaker overtime, to advance to the quarterfinals. There, on Friday morning, Ramos scored a reversal with two seconds left for an 8-7 win over West Virginia's Killian Cardinale.

Then came Friday night's monster upset over Lee, a two-time Hodge Trophy winner and arguably the most dominant wrestlers to come through Iowa's storied wrestling program. It will be a result many people in and out of the wrestling world will talk about for a long, long time.

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter [email protected]