Big 12 Wrestling Championships - Semifinals - March 3, 2012
2010-11: In his first year sporting the black and gold, Larson served as Missouri's starter at 184 pounds and earned a bid to the NCAA Championships for the second consecutive season. Larson started his Tiger career with seven consecutive wins, with five of those coming at the Central Missouri Open, where he took first place. He wrestled four matches at 197 pounds in November, posting a 3-1 record in those contests with wins over Matt Loew of Hofstra, Michael Wagner of Rutgers and Christian Boley of Maryland. Larson got hot in December, winning three of his last four dual matches of the 2010-portion of the schedule, leading into the Midlands where Larson went 5-2, good for fourth place. Both of his losses came to Lehigh's Robert Hamlin, who ended up as the national runner-up in the class. Larson earned four victories over Big 12 opponents during the tournament, beating James Nakashima of Nebraska twice, earning an 8-4 decision over Iowa State's Cole Shafer and a 2-1 win against Eric Schmidtke of Oklahoma. During the second half of the season, Larson helped Mizzou to a dominating victory over Central Michigan at the National Duals with a 16-1 technical fall against Chad Friend. He defeated Chattanooga's Jason McCroskey by a 3-2 final at home, and then majored Deshoun White of SIU-Edwardsville later that day. He closed out the dual season with a 4-3 decision over Shafer in Missouri's win against Iowa State. Larson finished the year with a 21-15 record and was 11-9 in dual action.
2009-10 (Cal State Bakersfield): Wrestled for the CSU-Bakersfield Roadrunners, and as a redshirt freshman he finished in second at the Pac-10 Championships, qualified for Nationals and was named to the Second Team All-Academic squad. He finished the year with a 24-16 record.
High School: Larson capped his prep career by winning the North Coast Section title during his senior season, and earning a berth to the CIF State Championships, where he placed seventh. He was an All-Humboldt-Del Norte League selection and also played football for the Panthers, earning all-league honors.
Personal: Mike Larson is the son of Jon and Lori Larson, and was born on July 6, 1990 in Arcata, Calif. He has a younger brother, Shane, who is 17 years old. He is majoring in agriculture and wants to be a coast guard pilot.
