Wyoming's Meredith on his way to his goal

University of Wyoming sophomore wrestler Bryce Meredith was asked on wrestling inside iconic Madison Square Garden prior to the NCAA Wrestling Championships.

Meredith felt it would be an amazing experience and closed with this: “There’s always this little burning desire in me that I want to be famous.”

Five matches later, the former Cheyenne Central standout left Madison Square Garden well on his path to that dream.

The Wyoming 141-pounder won four straight matches to reach the finals before falling 3-2 to top-seeded Dean Heil of Oklahoma State. Meredith put together a run for the ages in UW wrestling, beating the second, third and sixth seeds to reach the finals.

Meredith’s championship-match run put him in a heady club with four other UW wrestlers who wrestled in an NCAA championship match — Reese Andy (1996 and ’94), Jerry Frude (1960 and ’59), Dick Ballinger (1960 and ’58) and Louis Holland (1948).

The only Cowboy among that group to win a national title was Ballinger in 1960.

And here’s the best part: The 14th-seeded Meredith knew he was going to do something special in The Big Apple.

“I had this feeling come over me that ‘I’m going to run through this tournament. I’m going to surprise some people,’” Meredith said. “I liked my place in the bracket, I liked the way my training was going and how I was feeling emotionally and physically.

“I just knew it was going to be a good weekend. It turned out to be a great weekend.”

Meredith — who said he still thinks “about that match and the positions and what I could have done a little different” — still isn’t entirely sure of the magnitude of what he accomplished a week ago. But he also won’t let the fact of losing the title by two points diminish what he did, either.

“I’m not going to sit there and be bitter about losing that match,” he said. “I think what I did is pretty amazing. I’ll just be sitting there and it will hit me that I was in the NCAA finals. That was so crazy to make it that far.”

Meredith said he was besieged on social media following nationals with over 2,000 more followers on Instagram and a like amount on Twitter.

“The social media has been off the chain,” Meredith said with a big smile. “I’ve had people that I don’t know come up and congratulate me and that’s been fun. I’ve noticed a lot more people staring at me as I walk by.”

Wyoming wrestling coach Mark Branch didn’t mention Meredith specifically by name when talking prior to the meet on the chances of a UW wrestler doing well, but he could have been.

Branch — who won two NCAA titles as a wrestler at Oklahoma State — spoke on having the belief of a champion heading into the tournament.

“There’s plenty of guys who go in their first time and are All-Americans,” Branch said. “Hopefully you get to a level of wrestling that you’ve never gotten to in your life.

“If you put together your best five matches you can make some special things happen.”

Meredith certainly accomplished that.

He won his opening match 16-3 over Robbie Mathers of Arizona State before beating former North Carolina State teammate Kevin Jack (seeded third) 5-4 in the second round.

Friday was filled with drama and memories with a 5-3 victory over No. 2 seed Joey McKenna of Stanford and a thrilling 5-2 win over sixth seed Micah Jordan of Ohio State. Meredith trailed Jordan 2-1 in the final seconds before coming up with a dramatic reversal and nearfall to stun the crowd.

But not necessarily himself.

“When I beat Kevin Jack, that’s when I knew I could get to Saturday,” Meredith said. “I knew I was going to blow this open after that match. I felt like I could beat anybody after that. “(In the semifinals) I was just letting it fly. I was comfortable and I think I wrestled a little smarter than I do normally.

“I just had no fear of these guys beating me. You can’t be afraid to fail and I just wasn’t.”

Saturday’s finals started with a memory that Meredith said will last him forever. The finals weigh in was conducted on the same scale that was used for the now famous “Fight of the Century” at MSG between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1971.

“I can tell my kids about that,” Meredith said. “You’re so focused on the finals that you almost can’t enjoy it. I think I did a little better and soaking it in than other people that were around.”

The title match was tight throughout with Meredith trailing 2-0 early and 3-1 in the second period before pulling within 3-2 with an escape early in the final period. But despite repeated attacks — and a stall warning to Heil — the Cowboy came up just short.

The loss stung bad, Meredith said, lingering well into the next couple of days. But the realization of his accomplishment slowly melted away the sting of the loss.

“That’s something that I can tell for the rest of my life,” he said. “This is what we work hard for, to do stuff that nobody else will be able to do in the wrestling world.”

Meredith hopes his magical run will not only inspire his UW teammates, but others on and off the mat as well.

“We all have a purpose to be on this planet and God puts us in certain places,” Meredith said. “I’m at a place where maybe I can make somebody’s day by saying hi or having all these young kids following me (on social media) where I can say ‘keep up the good work’ and hopefully make someone’s day.

“I’m not here to just benefit myself. If I can bring joy to the people around me because of this success, that’s what I want to be famous for.”