| Upon first glance 160 looked to be a fairly weak weight class,
but it also had seven seeded wrestlers. Alexander Kellar
of Teurlings Catholic had only wrestled one match this season
prior to the Spartan Open, and that was a 5-4 loss to Shaw's
Brice Ballas. Nevertheless Kellar, who placed fourth in Division
II in 2013, was the top seed, followed by local Spartan wrestler
DeQuan Jackson. Dutchtown's Gabe Arceneaux was seeded
third, Zachary's Daniel Rittell fourth, Catholic's Morgan Root
fifth, Brother Martin's Anthony Schneider sixth and Jarrett Moss
of Baton Rouge was seeded seventh. |
The finals was a defensive struggle
for the first four minutes, with Rittell scoring the only
point, an escape after 50 seconds had elapsed in the second
period.
The third period was much different.
Arceneaux started on the bottom but could not manage an
escape. In the end Rittell managed a bar-arm and ran it
forward,
taking Arceneaux to his back and pinning him in 5:01. |
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| Zachary's Daniel Rittell offers a hand
to Gabe Arceneaux after pinning the Dutchtown wrestler in 5:01. |
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| QUARTERFINALS: |
| Oddly, it was the two finalists who
had the most trouble in the quarterfinals. Rittell
slipped past the #5 seed Morgan Root of Catholic 6-4 while
Arceneaux had a difficult a time with #6 Anthony Schneider
of Brother Martin, prevailing 4-2. Kellar and Jackson
were mirror images of each other almost. Kellar pinned
Pearl River's Christian Breedlove in 3:05, besting Jackson's
pin over seventh seed Jarrett Moss of Baton Rouge by five
seconds. |
| SEMIFINALS: |
| After tough quarterfinal matches both Rittell and
Arceneaux had fairly easy time in the semifinals.
Rittell pinned the top-seeded Kellar in 2:30 (photos
left) while Arceneaux defeated Jackson 10-5 (photos
right) |
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| CONSOLATIONS: |
| From all appearances second seed
DeQuan Jackson of East Ascension wrestled much better than
the final 5-3 score indicated against top-seeded Alexander
Kellar of Teurlings Catholic. But even that was not to
be. Near the end of the match Kellar cross-faced
Jackson rather hard. At the end of the match the
official stopped to check Kellar's forearm and saw what
looked like teeth marks. Jackson was disqualified for
biting and Kellar was awarded third place. As
surprised as everyone else was, Kellar, showing commendable
character, stated he did not recall Jackson biting him.
Most believe the marks were left unintentionally as the
result of a cross-face on a tired wrestler in the third
period of a match, who happened to be breathing through his
mouth at the time. |
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