Jake Rando of Holy Cross won his second Division I state championship in a
5-0 decision over Hunter Bourgeois of St. Paul's. During the season he was
undefeated in Louisiana and only Hunter Bourgeois of St. Paul's, whom he would
meet in the finals for the second consecutive year, Airline's Tony Lococo, and
Comeaux's Evan Richards did not fall to him via a major decision or worse.
Synopsis
This was a two-man weight class all season, although a
pesky Comeaux sophomore came close to breaking that scenario. Defending
Division I Jake Rando of Holy Cross started off on top and remained there all
season. Yet right behind him and challenging him every time was the
opponent he defeated in the 2015 finals, Hunter Bourgeois of St. Paul's.
Bourgeois' season was ridiculously good, aside from his three losses to Rando in
the Raider Invitational finals, a December 2nd dual meet and the Louisiana
Classic finals. Bourgeois posted 33 wins. Three of those were major
decisions and 27 were by falls. He won the Trygg Memorial followed by a
second Trey Culotta championship, and he post a 7-1 record at the Deep South Bayou
Duals, including wins over wrestlers from Altus, OK, Jefferson, GA and
Wrightstown, WI. Starting in the 2015 state finals, however, into which
Bourgeois advanced as a sixth seed, an 11-6 loss would be the start of a heated
2015-16 rivalry.
Rando's season was perfect in Louisiana and
Nevada, and his only two losses came at the South Walton Border Wars to
Florida state champion and double Fargo national champion in the
semifinals, and to another Florida state champion 10-8 in the
consolation finals. He won the Raider Invitational, the Spartan
Invitational, the Las Vegas Holiday Classic, the Louisiana Classic and a
second Ken Cole title and Ken Cole Outstanding Wrestler award. In
his first match against Bourgeois he won a convincing 5-0 shutout.
His next match, however, was a 15-13 learning experience. In the
Louisiana Classic finals, the two again had a close match, with Rando
prevailing 10-7.
Only Comeaux's Evan Richards made Bourgeois go
the entire six minutes without scoring a major, and he did it three
times. Bourgeois beat Richards 4-2 and 5-0 in the Trey Culotta and
8-2 in the Louisiana Classic semifinals. Aside from a couple of
very early losses, both of which he later avenged, the Comeaux sophomore
only had the three losses to Bourgeois, two to Rando and three to
Division II Sam Houston's Andrew Aucoin, a three-time Division II
runner-up who would soon make it to the top of the podium in Bossier
City. The loss to Rando, however, at the Deep South Bayou Duals,
was a 1-0 affair - the closest anyone in Louisiana could claim against
the Holy Cross junior.
Somewhat lost in the weight class was Airline
senior Tony Lococo, a fifth-place finisher in Rando's and Bourgeois'
weight class in 2015. Lococo started off very well by winning the
Warrior Open and placing second in the State Games of Oklahoma.
Wrestling a northwest Louisiana schedule through the first two weeks of
December, Lococo was injured in the Evangel Eagle Open on December 12th.
The injury forced him to miss the Trey Culotta, the Texas Outlaw and the
Louisiana Classic. Returning five weeks later for two dual meets,
he then participated in the Ken Cole. Lococo lost to Rando in the
semifinals and then to Richards in the consolation finals, which put him
in the fourth-seeded position for the state championships.
Richards and Lococo were destined to meet again
only because Richards found himself on the short end of a great 6-5 TB-1
semifinals match with Bourgeois. The third and fourth
seeds got past #5 and #7 and met in the consolation finals in which
Lococo eked out a 5-4 win to place third.
Placers
Place |
Name |
School |
Seed |
Year |
1st |
Jake Rando |
Holy Cross |
1 |
11 |
2nd |
Hunter Bourgeois |
St. Paul's |
2 |
12 |
3rd |
Tony Lococo |
Airline |
4 |
12 |
4th |
Evan Richards |
Comeaux |
3 |
10 |
5th |
Cal Palermo |
Brother Martin |
5 |
12 |
6th |
William Rosevally |
Jesuit |
7 |
11 |
|
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