Jared Frank scored a pair of victories on Saturday to lead for North Dakota State to advance to the 157-pound championship match of the 2022 Big 12 Wrestling Championships.
Frank began his day by defeating Derek Holschlag of Northern Iowa by an 8–4 decision in the quarterfinal round, setting up a matchup with Oklahoma's Justin Thomas in the semifinals.
Frank recorded an early takedown on Holslag and then added a second before the end of the period and gave Junior a 4–1 lead after the first period. After rushing to start second, Franck added another takedown to take a commanding 6-2 lead in the third period before adding escape and riding time points to seal the win.
In his semifinal matchup with Thomas, Frenk would see a scoreless first period. Thomas took a 13-second escape in period two, but Franck responded with a takedown to take a 2–1 lead, before play stopped for blood time. Coming off the break, Thomas recorded an escape and headed for the third period to tie the match 2–2.
Franck quickly escaped and then recorded a takedown to go up 5-2. Thomas would receive escape points and penalty points late, but Frank set up a matchup with Iowa State's Derek Carr in the championship final on Sunday evening.
Three other bison advanced to the semi-finals on Saturday, including 165-pound Big 12 champion Luke Weber, who had to win the prelims and quarter-finals to reach the semi-finals. Webber started the day with a 6-2 decision over Nick Knutson of Northern Colorado.
Webber defeated Travis Wittelek of Oklahoma State to reach the semi-finals. In the rematch of the 2021 semifinals, Webber dominated Wittek from the start and defeated the Cowboys 4–0.
However, Webber will lose to Missouri's Keegan O'Toole in the semifinals and begin Sunday in the consolation semifinals, aiming to reach a third-place match.
Dylan Drozemueller and Owen Pentz also traveled to the semifinals with a pair of victories over the Oklahoma wrestlers. Drozemueller won over Jacob Butler by a 4–2 decision before falling to Alan Hart of Missouri in his semifinal match at 141 pounds. Pentz claimed a 6-4 win over Jake Woodley in his quarterfinal match at 197 pounds before falling to Tanner Sloan of South Dakota State.
DJ Parker, Geven Sachs and Brandon Metz recovered from quarterfinal losses to win the consolation bracket and advance to the medal round on Sunday.
Parker picked up a pair of 184-pound consolation round victories over Utah Valley's Jacob Armstrong and West Virginia's Anthony Carman to advance to a third-place match to advance to the consolation semifinals.
Sachs and Metz won the first consolation matches and fell in the second round of consolation matches to reach seventh place on Sunday. Sachs won over Christopher Sandoval of northern Colorado at 149 pounds, while Metz won the heavyweight round against Utah Valley's Chase Trussell.
Riley Hubish claimed the only other win for the Bison, as he won against Jackson Hemauer of northern Colorado in a ninth-place bracket 174-pound matchup. Habish will wrestle on Sunday in ninth place.