2022 LHSAA State Wrestling Championships February 11th-12th 2022 Raising Cane's River Center Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Place	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
Podium
Name	Jacob Houser	Andrew Lusby	David Viers	Voltaie Sanders	Aiden Lindsey	Elijah Gilmore
School	St. Paul	Live Oak	Parkway	Zachary	Fontainebleau	Catholic
Seed	1	6	2	5	8	7
Class	12	12	12	12	11	11
Final Record*	34-0	42-6	41-3	28-7	32-19	28-15

*    Records include all wins but only losses to Louisiana wrestlers.  Forfeits and defaults are not counted.

Tournament placements are like golf – the lowest number is better.  First is better than second, etc.  Thus, in the Houser household, (6+2+1+1=10) < (7+1+1+3=12).  Jacob Houser placed sixth as a freshman in 2019.  He was a runner-up to Ernie Perry in 2020 and won titles in 2021 and 2022.  Elder Brother Cole placed in a tie for seventh as a freshman in 2015, won state championships as a sophomore and junior in 2016 and 2017, but placed third in his senior year of 2018 (a disappointing finish he took with class).  Jacob gets the Houser household wrestling bragging rights.

Houser only lost twice in the 2020-21 season.  That did not happen in his senior year.  Against Louisiana wrestlers (yet Houser beat all comers from Texas, Alabama and Florida) Rummel’s Division II state champion Carter Burgess came closest, falling only 7-2 in a dual meet.  Like Clementi, Perry and Elsensohn before him, Houser owned 138 lbs.

Seeding Synopsis

In his 29 pre-state wins Houser accumulated four tournament championships.  He won the South Walton Border Wars, the Battle of New Orleans, the Louisiana Classic and his third St. Tammany Parish Championships (Houser might have won four - the 2021 St. Tammany event was cancelled due to COVID 19).  Aside from Burgess he also defeated Basile’s Luc Johnson (D3 1^st), Grant Herbert of Jesuit (D1 2^nd) and De la Salle’s Liam O’Connor (D3 2^nd).  In the Battle of New Orleans finals, he defeated Live Oak’s Andrew Lusby (D1 2nd) via an 11-1 MD.

Parkway senior David Viers was seeded second.  His 36 wins included championships at the Riot on the Red, the David Beeson Memorial, the Lone Survivor, the Big Cat Brawl and the North LA Regionals.  He placed second at the Trey Culotta and third at the LACL.  His two official losses (as per LWN criteria) were to Teurlings Catholic’s Brandt Babineaux at the Ken Cole, after which he was forced to retire from the tournament, and to Basile’s Luc Johnson (D3 1st) in the LACL.  Prior to the Ken Cole Viers had two wins over Babineaux (D2 2^nd), two wins over Haughton’s Tyler Villareal (D2 3^rd), a fall over Acadiana’s Luke Lafleur and a tough 6-5 win over Lusby.

Third-seeded Luke Lafleur of Acadiana did not start the season until mid-January at the LACL.  He placed fourth there (losing to Viers) but defeated Babineaux and Lusby as well as Brother Martin’s Nicholas Cusimano.  He won the Lafayette Metro over Babineaux. 

Seeded fourth was Cusimano.  The Crusader junior won the Gulf Coast Clash and the District 9-5A championship.  He placed third at the Black Horse and the Trey Culotta, and fifth at the LACL.  A loss to Lafleur put him in the fourth spot.

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Early Championship Rounds

R1: (5) Voltaire Sanders (ZAC) pinned Jonathan Dezam (HNV) in 5:10, Kurt Sharon (DST) pinned Lyle Toups (BR) in 1: 28

R2: (4) Nick Cusimano (BM) pinned Bryce Reiter (COM) in 3:07

R2 :(5) Voltaire Sanders (ZAC) pinned Rylee Reeves (HC) in 3:38, (7) Elijah Gilmore (CAT) pinned Kurt Sharon (DST) in 0:53, (2) David Viers (PKY) pinned Shawn Townsend (DUT) in 1:10

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Quarterfinals

The first major bracket upset was recorded when sixth-seeded Andrew Lusby upended #3 Lafleur 6-4.  Lusby scored a reversal with a little over one minute remaining in the third period.  Lafleur had pinned Lusby in the Louisiana Classic quarterfinals.

A lesser upset was that of #5 Sanders over #4 Cusimano via a fall in 4:45.  Sanders was 14-1 before the LACL, winning the Griffin and Big Horse opens, and later took second at the Greater Baton Rouge Championships and third at the Ken Cole.  He will be sorely missed because he provided some great photographs over the years.

(1) Jacob Houser (StP) defeated (8) Aiden Lindsey (FNT) 7-1

(5) Voltaire Sanders (ZAC) pinned (4) Nicholas Cusimano (BM) in 4:45

(6) Andrew Lusby (LO) defeated (3) Luke Lafleur (ACA) 6-4

(2) David Viers (PKY) pinned (7) Elijah Gilmore (CAT) in 1:10

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Semifinals

Lusby proved he had no respect for the seeding committee with a fall in 4:38 over #2 Viers.  Lusby’s win was not as big an upset as most #6 vs. #2 upsets are, as Viers defeated Lusby by a mere 6-5 score in the LACL.  I have watched Lusby for years.  He has always been capable of beating just about anyone, in this case Lafleur, but then getting beaten by that kid’s fourth-grade sister.  (Master Lusby knows I would write this, and teammate Rayden Ingram agreed with my observance.)  Viers, however, was not a fourth-grader, so perhaps the analogy does not apply.  Either way, Lusby’s options on podium spots fell tremendously from four to two. 

The Live Oak senior had a highly successful year prior to making the state finals, and his being seeded sixth indicated the parity and strength of this weight class.  He won the Warrior Open, the Brusly 8 and the Greater Baton Rouge Championships.  He placed second at the Griffin Open, the Big Horse and the Battle of New Orleans.  His bane was Sanders, who gave him his only two losses before the LACL.

(1) Jacob Houser (StP) defeated (5) Voltaire Sanders (ZAC) 9-2

(6) Andrew Lusby (LO) pinned (2) David Viers (PKY) in 4:38

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Consolation Rounds

C1: Jonathan Dezam (HNV) defeated Jacob Reeves (SH) 17-2 TF, C2: Shawn Townsend (DUT) Steven Jarreau (WLK) in 0:41

C3: Rylee Reeves (HC) defeated Bryce Reiter (COM) 4-3

The consolation rounds were not kind to the third and fourth seeds.  Jesuit’s Luc Colomb took out Lafleur in the fourth round of consolations prior to his ousting by Catholic’s #7 Elijah Gilmore.  The fourth-seeded Cusimano was knocked out by #8 Aiden Lindsey of Fontainebleau in the round before the medals matches.

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Championship Consolation Rounds

Viers got past Sanders 4-2 to place third and #8 Lindsey upset #7 Gilmore 6-1 for fifth place.

(2) David Viers (PKY) defeated (5) Voltaire Sanders (ZAC) 4-2 to place 3rd

(8) Aiden Lindsey (FNT) defeated (7) Elijah Gilmore (CAT) 6-1 to place 5th

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Finals

Houser had his way with Lusby in the finals of the Battle of New Orleans, via an 11-1 MD.  In this match, he used the end of the periods to clinch it.  He scored a takedown with four seconds remaining in the first period, which meant a 5-2 lead versus a 3-2 one.  In the second period Lusby basically held Houser to one escape point until only three seconds remained when Houser scored another takedown, giving Houser an 8-2 lead going into the final two minutes.  The two takedowns in seven seconds at the end of the first and second periods made things incredibly more difficult for Lusby.  Without them he would have been down only 4-2 to start the third period.  At 8-2 Houser, for good reason, chose to start the third period standing and scored a takedown after a minute.  Lusby added an escape and a takedown to his first period reversal points, but it was not enough to derail Houser, who won his second state championship in a 10-5 match. 

(1) Jacob Houser (StP) defeated (6) Andrew Lusby (LO) 10-5

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