A padded floor and the thick, sickly sweet air helped smother the athlete's groans, but the coach's barked orders were always clear:

"Use your hips! Push his head into the mat! That's your elbow, not his! Hips! Hips! Hips!"

SF State hosted its 32nd annual California Collegiate Wrestling Invitational Jan. 26—a 12-hour-long open tournament featuring over 180 of the nation's toughest, nastiest grapplers.

Gator Steve Franklin (285 pounds) finished a runner-up, while teammates Curtis Schurkamp (125), Ben Lockett (133) and Joaquin Carlos (141) all placed top-six—not bad, considering most of the opposition hailed from NCAA Division I, Gator coach Lars Jensen said.

They came from schools like Stanford, Oregon State, Cal Poly and UC Davis. And over 20 came from Cal State Bakersfield, a school that once competed at D-II level, but recently promoted itself to D-I—a school that hands out eight wrestling scholarships each year compared to SF State’s two, according to Jensen.

But 174-pound Gator Marcus Gales said he doesn't care what school his opponents represent. He'll wrestle anyone.

"They're just men—they're just like us," said Gales, who went 2-2 on the day to post 11-19 this season. "He's just another man you have to wrestle, no matter what his singlet (a wrestling outfit) says. You just have to go out there and do your best."

Lockett (22-13) stunned Oregon State’s Tyler Phillips with four-straight takedowns late in a quarterfinal match—but he couldn't repeat similar form in the semis, losing a major decision to Cal State Bakersfield's Thomas Kimbrell.

Carlos, an unattached junior transfer from Cal State Fullerton, went 2-0 before losing his semifinal. He did, however, win a consolation bracket match against a former Fullerton teammate to place fourth.

And nationally ranked junior Schurkamp (18-12) bounced opponents from Cal State Fullerton and Menlo College before thrashing Grand Canyon University's Adrian Rios 16-0 in a quarterfinal.

Rios, an asthmatic who paused mid-match to use an inhaler, finished the match with a mouth full of blood while Schurkamp progressed to the semifinals—which he lost to eventual champion Brandon Zoelewey of Cal State Bakersfield.

"That guy [Zoelewey] just outclassed me," said Schurkamp, who also lost to Zoelewey the day before in a non-conference dual. “It's a good awakening...I'll go back to the drawing board and fix what needs to be done."

Schurkamp admitted that open tourneys are more about preparing for regional and national qualifiers, which begin in March, than competition. It's like spring training, but for wrestlers.

Still, no wrestler wants to lose—and no wrestler wants to get hurt.

"You ask any of these guys if they're hurting, and they'll all tell you about something," said Vic Anastasio, a tournament volunteer and self-described wrestling enthusiast. "Elbows, fingers, knees, hands—whatever it is, they get pretty bust up."

A study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine puts the amount of collegiate wrestling injuries second only to football—and on this particular Saturday, shoulders were dislocated, noses were bloodied and legs were forced into positions their groins didn't want.

But most survived, unscathed and ready for the next mauling, which for many came later that same day.

"We see a lot of blood, concussions and maybe a few dislocations," said SF State trainer Dawn Heinrich, who had just finished taping up a wart that partly sheared off a wrestler's forearm. "This is just an open so it's not as bad as a full meet, which can get pretty ... well, really aggressive."

Injuries aside, the actual physical demand placed on the body during a seven-minute match can be debilitating.

Throughout this day-long event, most competitors—whether a victor or loser—sauntered off the mat, drenched in sweat and looking pale, gaunt and exhausted. By midday, the gym's bleachers and surrounding corridors were littered with sleeping wrestlers as they awaited their next match.

"You're going seven minutes, and that seven minutes feels like forever," said 157-pound freshman Josh Gonzales, a Gator who lost his matches 16-0 and 20-2. "You use all your muscles and exert all your energy. Coming off the mat ... you feel drained, and you just want to go lie down."

Gonzales' teammate Gales preferred to focus and hydrate between mat time.

"I don't really get too hungry," Gales said. "I don't know if that's just butterflies in my stomach and being anxious, but I don't eat much."

Whatever the wrestler's size or body shape, certain physical characteristics abound, like broad shoulders, wide necks and muscular appendages—all traits that help attain the ultimate goal, which is pinning your opponent's shoulders down onto the mat for a full second.

A grappler can also win by accumulating points through maneuvers such as takedowns, which can cause other characteristics commonly seen in wrestlers, like cauliflower-shaped ears and bent noses.

Lockett is a takedown expert and leads the Gators with 107 this year. Franklin, however, is all about pinning and has tallied a team-high eight this season.

This weekend he pinned two opponents and won four-straight matches before reaching the 285-pound weight class final.

At around 7 p.m.—10 hours after the day's first match took place—Franklin found his parents in the bleachers, where he ate a snack of peanut butter, bananas and Gatorade.

A half-hour later he took the floor for his final, where he met Oregon State's Clayton Jack.

But Jack, a 6-foot-5 former high school footballer and state champion, spent much of the match grinding either his knee, head, elbow or chest into Franklin's back as the big Gator lay face-down on the mat.

Franklin lost the tie 8-0, a major decision.

"These Division I guys have an intensity that you won't see in our conference,” Jensen said. “They're in your face. They're hammering on you all the time."