Fini

When the six-minute whistle blew Rummel's Robert Fairchild thought he had won an 11-10 state championship finals match.  A literally last-second stalling point, however, gave Live Oak's Ean Hill one more chance.  With the match now tied at 11 apiece, Hill fended off a Fairchild upper body attack first, and then a leg attack and eventually spun behind Raider wrestler to score the winning takedown for a 13-11 victory.

Synopsis

The senior Fairchild had another good year, notching 39 wins versus only seven losses (all to four Division I wrestlers, consisting of a 2016 state champion, a runner-up and two 4th-place finishers).  He was the prohibitive favorite at 126 lbs. in Division II having won the Raider Invitational and the Brusly 8, and placing fourth at the Trey Culotta and the Louisiana Classic.

Live Oak junior Ean Hill spent most of the season at 132 lbs. but moved down a weight class when teammate Ethan Alphonso dropped to that weight.  Hill had numerous losses at 132, mostly to Division I competition, but more importantly to Rummel's John Doyle, against whom he was 0-4.  At 126 though, he fared much better, losing only one match to St. Amant's Jesse Breaud of Division I while winning eight.  Those wins included a Greater Baton Rouge Championships title, in which he avenged an early-season loss to Central's Tyler Fontenot and unexpectedly pinned Catholic's Daniel Gunn in the finals.

Of the top four seeds, though, of which Josh Hebert of Teurlings Catholic was #3 and Tyler Fontenot of Central was #4, only Fontenot and Hill had faced each other.  Until that stalling point was awarded to Hill at the end of regulation in the finals, though, nobody in the weight class was expected to prevent Fairchild from a state championship.

Fontenot placed third with a 6-5 win over fifth-seeded Matthew Pitts of Parkway.  Hebert took fifth-place with a fall in 3:50 over East Jefferson's Ronald Kimball

Placers Place Name School Seed Year 1st Ean Hill Live Oak 2 11 2nd Robert Fairchild Rummel 1 12 3rd Tyler Fontenot Central 4 11 4th Matthew Pitts Parkway 5 11 5th Josh Hebert Teurlings Catholic 3 11 6th Nicholas Shields East Jefferson 6 11

1st

Ean Hill

Friday Rounds

R2: (1) Fairchild (RUM) over Chopin (BC) in 1:39

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Quarterfinals

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Semifinals

(1) Robert Fairchild (RUM) defeated (4) Tyler Fontenot (CEN) 7-3.

(2) Ean Hill (LO) defeated (3) Josh Hebert (TC) 9-7.

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Championship Consolation Rounds

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Finals

(2) Ean Hill of Live Oak defeated (1) Robert Fairchild of Rummel 13-11 in a Sudden Victory period.

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