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2020 State Wrestling Championships - Division II 152 pounds

April 15th, 2020 | Written by: Editor

Apathy and avarice on the part

of two entities have prevented completing a

comprehensive pictorial article on the 2020

Louisiana state wrestling championships.

Richard Mack, III of North Desoto, regained the title he won in 2019 with a 7-6 win over Teurlings Catholics Ivan Hale.

Photo

Apathy and avarice on the part

of two entities have prevented completing a

comprehensive pictorial article on the 2020

Louisiana state wrestling championships.

Apathy and avarice on the part

of two entities have prevented completing a

comprehensive pictorial article on the 2020

Louisiana state wrestling championships.

Apathy and avarice on the part

of two entities have prevented completing a

comprehensive pictorial article on the 2020

Louisiana state wrestling championships.

Apathy and avarice on the part

of two entities have prevented completing a

comprehensive pictorial article on the 2020

Louisiana state wrestling championships.

Apathy and avarice on the part

of two entities have prevented completing a

comprehensive pictorial article on the 2020

Louisiana state wrestling championships.

Place

Name

Richard Mack, III

Ivan Hale

Michael Seal

John Gagnon

Hezekiah
Chatelain

Parker Thombs

School

North Desoto

Teurlings
Catholic

Shaw

Belle Chasse

Lakeshore

NOMMA

Seed

Final Record

42-0

19-5

27-7

19-10

29-28

15-19

Grade

Senior

Junior

Sophomore

Junior

Senior

Synopsis

North Desoto's Richard Mack, III, won a Division II state championship as a sophomore in 2018 but finished a disappointing third in 2019. This season he was determined not only to reacquire the Division II state championship, but to be the best at 152 lbs. in the state.

Let's get rid of his two losses first, both of which occurred at the Beast of the East in Delaware. One was an 8-5 decision by Luke Sainato of Gettysburg Area High School in Tennessee. Sainato made it to the Pennsylvania state championship tournament, and that is one tough event for which to qualify. The other was to Nicholas Vafiadis of New Kent High School in Virginia, who became a Virginia Class 1,2 and 3 state champion.

As for the other out-of-state tournaments Mack won the BA Open, the Heath Open, the Rumble at the Rock and the Bring the Hammer events. In Louisiana he won the Louisiana Classic and the Northwest Louisiana Regionals. Mack, however, had some tough matches along the way. His Rumble at the Rock finals was a 6-5 match. His Louisiana Classic finals match was only a 4-3 win over Peyton Ward of St. Paul, and Ward was extremely close to scoring a takedown when time ran out in the final period. Mack also won only a 4-3 decision over Brother Martin's Riley Horvath in the semifinals. Ward would defeat Horvath later in the Division I finals. In the quarterfinals he pinned Brusly's Andrew Trahan in 3:02. Trahan would go on to win his second Division III state championship.

Mack wasted little time in his first two matches of the state championships, pinning his opponents in 1:43 and 1:13. He had a tougher semifinals match with fourth-seeded Michael Seal of Shaw, whom Mack defeated 8-1.

Seeded second was junior Ivan Hale of Teurlings Catholic. Hale was 19-5 on the season, and placed second at the Rayne Invitational (one of two losses to Hunter Langley of Basile) and third at the Lone Survivor, losing in the semifinals 13-4 MD to Brad Mahoney of East Ascension. His other loss was at the Ken Cole (where Langley defeated him for the second time) to Sulphur's Hugo Perez. He was seeded over Belle Chasse's John Gagnon due to a split versus Sulphur's Hugo Perez whereas Gagnon lost his only match to the Sulphur wrestler. Hale had a first-round bye, pinned Parker Thombs of NOMMA in 3:00 and then scored a 15-2 major decision over Gagnon to advance to the finals.

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