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The 2020 Louisiana Classic was held on January 17th and 18th at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana.  As expected, Coach Andrew Nicola's Brother Martin Crusaders won the event by 37 points over Holy Cross and 114 points over St. Paul.  The margin over the Wolves surprised many as they have been considered as viable to win this event as well as the Division I state team title as the Brother Martin after their 34-29 dual meet win over the Crusaders on December 13th.  How much does that say about the upcoming state championships, though?

There is a common misconception that the Louisiana Classic a very good indicator of who will win the Division I state team title a few weeks later.  One should not bet with anything one cannot afford to lose on that prospect, however.  Since 2001, the team that has won the Louisiana Classic (or Lee High Invitational before 2010) has only won the Division I state championship 53% of the time.  Most recently, in 2017, the Brother Martin Crusaders won the Louisiana Classic by 37 points while the Tigers won state by 28 points, with Jesuit placing second.  Some may accuse Division II and Division III placers of stealing points away from Division I teams, but "that dog don't hunt."  In a sampling of every three years from 2001 through 2019 (using 2006 as El Reno, Oklahoma, had a serious impact on the event in that year, and incomplete results exist only for 2010), Division II and Division III wrestlers accounted for 45% of the top-six placers.  In six of those seven years, the Louisiana Classic champions did win the Division I championship.  Including the years of 2001 and 2019 when Division II and Division III wrestlers accounted for 24 and 25 of the 84 top-six places.  In fact, the only year sampled in which the Louisiana Classic winner did not win the Division I state championship was in 2006 when only 10 of the 84 place-spots were taken by Division II and Division III wrestlers.   

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With the above misconception statistically debunked, only one of the cereal boxes below indicates what effect by the results of the 2020 Louisiana Classic will have at the state championships.  (OK, who saw THIS coming?)

As for the Cap'n, no doubt several wrestlers incurred "crunching" injuries during the tournament, but by doing so they helped prove even less of what the tournament might mean for the state championships.  Frosted Flakes?  Sure, one can use the pun with the "Not Jacob" and "Not Evan" twins from Holy Cross, but everyone knows that individual weight class championships do not mean team championships, and no matter how good Holy Cross' "Dynamic Duo¹" are, the number of points they can score for the Tigers is limited.  Lucky Charms?  Nobody just gets lucky and goes home with a Louisiana Classic sweatshirt.  As for Shredded Wheat, that really can only apply to the opponents of a few wrestlers, like anyone in the 106 lbs., 113 lbs., 170 lbs., 195 lbs., 220 lbs. or 285 lbs. weight classes.  The answer, however, is Nut & Honey

¹    The editor is awaiting the outcome at the Frost house as to who is Robin, as well as stipulating that according to J.R.R. Tolkien using the plural "are" is acceptable when describing a "duo."

Neither the Crusaders nor the Wolves, or for that matter the Tigers, were at their full strength.  Brother Martin was without the services of defending Division I state champion Mason Massicot.  St. Paul was missing Trey Faherty at 113 lbs. and Evan Ulfers at 195 lbs., and only entered 13 wrestlers.  Holy Cross only entered 11 wrestlers.  Almost every team makes adjustments between the Louisiana Classic and the state championships, anyway, and coaches and wrestlers are not known to let those changes known, nor who may be out for the season due to injuries that kept them out of the Louisiana Classic.

Champions - Brother Martin Crusaders	Runners-up - Holy Cross Tigers

Full Brackets in PDF

Individual Weight Class Winners - Bottom L-R:

Bottom (left to right): 106 Ernie Perry, III - Airline 113 Evan Frost - Holy Cross 120 Jacob Frost - Holy Cross (x2) 126 Ethan Castex - Brother Martin 132 Peter Kelly - Catholic 138 Jacob Ramirez - Rummel 145 Alex Duncan - Brother Martin

Top (left to right) 152 Richard Mack, III - North Desoto 160 Ben Davidson - St. Paul 170 Trent Mahoney - East Ascension (x3) 182 Jarin Meyer - Baton Rouge 195 Chase Spooner - South Beauregard 220 Cole Ulfers - St. Paul 285 Donald Paul - Comeaux

The Crusaders had two individual champions, as did Holy Cross and St. Paul.  Airline, Rummel, East Ascension and Comeaux each had one, as did Division II's North Desoto and Division III's South Beauregard.

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Outstanding Wrestler

Jacob Frost: 120 lbs. from Holy Cross   Holy Cross' Jacob Frost was voted the tournament's Outstanding Wrestler, and frankly, if anyone else (save one if the editor had a vote) had won the 120 lbs. weight class, that wrestler would have won the award.  This weight class was hard at first because of Frost, a defending Louisiana Classic and Division I state champion (as well as a Division I runner-up in 2018 as an eighth-grader).  Add 2018 defending Division II state champion Joshua Sarpy, who Frost defeated in the 2019 finals 2-0.  Sarpy, the fifth-seed (yes, the fifth seed) had to get past 2019 Division II runner-up Joshua Keeler of Parkway in the quarterfinals.  Seeded second to Frost was St. Louis' undefeated three-time defending Division III state champion Alex Yokubaitis.  Trey Culotta champion Carter Duet of St. Paul was seeded sixth.  Last weekend's Lafayette Metro champion Reed Bergeron was seeded seventh, followed by last weekend's Greater Baton Rouge champion Mason Acosta of Catholic who was seeded eighth.  Seeded third was Houston Westside's Christian Lopez prviously had a 6-2 win over Sarpy. Frost began with a first round-bye and a second-round fall in 38 seconds .  He scored a 17-2 technical fall in the semifinals over Acosta, and then things got somewhat difficult.  In a rematch of last year's finals, Frost got past Sarpy 4-3 in the semifinals.  On the other side of the bracket Lopez defeated Jesuit's Chris Charles in round-two, Duet in the quarterfinals and Yokubaitis in the semifinals. Despite some initial first-period face slapping and two very fortuitous stoppages for blood coming from Lopez' forehead, Frost, down 2-0 early, came back to dominate Lopez in the last two periods despite only a 6-5 winning score.  Had someone thought to bandage Lopez' head prior to the third match stoppage, Frost could easily have won by a much larger margin.

Miscellanea

East Ascension Spartans_ Runner-up Gavin Soniat, three-time champion Trent Mahoney, Coach Pat Mahoney, third-place winner Brad Mahoney	Dale Ketelsen Sportsmanship Award - Chalmette Owls

How did they sneak that shirt on Trent Mahoney?

Pre-finals warm-ups

Trent and Brad Mahoney Trent Mahoney and Camdyn Ingram Corey Brownell and Dmetri Teddie

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