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