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	Spencer Lanosga	Ashton Freeman	Bryant Breska	Tayvon Patterson	David Russell	Donovan Kimble
School	Jesuit	Zachary	Chalmette	Airline	Catholic	Destrehan
Seed	1	2	5	NS	4	3
Class	10	12	12	12	11	12
Final Record*	17-0	17-3	18-5	23-9	22-9	20-9

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

Spencer Lanosga should not have been seeded first at the LACL for the simple fact that he really had not wrestled anyone all season.  Literally - HE REALLY HAD NOT WRESTLED ANYONE ALL SEASON.  By the time the state champions came by, though, Lanosga was 12-0, and an obvious top seed.  After 1,200 matches over the weekend, it came down to his last match to give the Blue Jays sole possession of the Division I runner-up team plaque.  The sophomore delivered.

Seeding Synopsis

After winning the LACL, the Ken Cole and the 9-5A championships, pinning 10 of his 12 opponents and defeating defending state champion Ashton Freeman (D1 2nd) twice, one can see why Jesuit sophomore Spencer Lanosga was seeded first at the state championships.  During those 12 matches, aside from Freeman, he pinned #3 seed Donovan Kimble of Chalmette (D1 6^th), Catholic’s #4 seed David Russell (D1 5^th), Rummel’s Davell Dixon (D2 1^st), Shaw’s Raymond Howard (D2 2^nd) and Anphrony Guillory (D3 1^st) of Basile.  Twenty-five percent of his wins were against defending or soon to be state champions. 

Zachary senior Ashton Freeman was the only choice for the second seed spot.  His two losses were to Lanosga in 6-1 and 2-2 UTB matches.  Before the state championships he had defeated #5 Brant Breksa of Chalmette (D1 3^rd), #4 Russell (D1 5^th), Division II #1 seed Tre`Von Williams, Rummel’s Dixon (D2 1^st) and Erath’s Ryan Fobbs (D3 5^th).  He pinned 11 opponents in his 13 matches before the state championships.  While he was a runner-up at the LACL and the Ken Cole, he did win the Greater Baton Rouge Championships.

Seeded third was Destrehan senior Donovan Kimble, with a 16-7 record.  Kimble won the District 7-8-5A and the Titan Invitational championships, was a runner-up at the Battle of New Orleans and placed fifth at the LACL.  That match was over Catholic’s Russell, giving Kimble the #3 spot.  Kimble was 2-3 against #5 Bryant Breksa of Chalmette, but was 1-0 against Russell, who was seeded fourth to Breksa’s fifth.  Russell was 1-0 against Breksa. 

Junior David Russell of Catholic was seeded fourth.  He had runner-up finishes at the Brusly 8, the Zachary Big Horse, and the GBRs, and he placed sixth at the LACL.

(Kimble, Russell and Breksa – there was certainly a method to the seeding, but not one to be investigated on the 42^nd of 42 weight class pages.  Think of Dr. Clipton's last line in The Bridge on the River Kwai.)

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Early Championship Rounds

R2: (1) Spencer Lanosga (JES) pinned Ethan Perron (SS) in 0:19

Quarterfinals

In their first match, on December 11th, Catholic's David Russell spent less than 30 seconds to pin Chalmette's Bryant Breksa.  The Owl from Chalmette did not forget that in the state quarterfinals.  For two rounds he just abused the Bear junior while taking a 6-0 lead (see the photographs and understand why the replay had to be viewed).  One might expect that lead to increase as Breksa started the third period on the bottom, and he stood up as if he meant business.  But then something happened the Owl did not intend.  As Russell returned Breksa forward to the mat, Breksa turned into Russell and ended up on his back.  Not one to look a gift Owl in the beak, Russell pounced on the opportunity and recorded a fall in 4:18.

(1) Spencer Lanosga (JES) pinned (8) Evan Huling (BM) in 1:46

(4) David Russell (CAT) pinned (5) Bryant Breska (CHL) in 4:18

(3) Donavan Kimble (DST) pinned (6) John Sheridan (HC) in 1:53

(2) Ashton Freeman (ZAC) pinned (7) Derek Vuong (BR) in 0:18

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Semifinals

(It is the last of the semifinal matches, and I am photographing them over the Division II matches from the press table with nine pounds of camera and f/2.8 120-300mm lens.  Be happy you get one photo for a 21-second pin, Spencer!)

(1) Spencer Lanosga (JES) pinned (4) David Russell (CAT) in 0:21

(2) Ashton Freeman (ZAC) pinned (3) Donovan Kimble (DST) in 1:53

Championship Consolation Rounds

It is a crying shame that the only photographs of Airline’s Tayvon Patterson are ones in which he is getting beaten by Breksa.  Both had tough roads to the consolation finals.  Breksa had to regroup his faculties after his stunning quarterfinals loss to Russell.  He did that via falls in 1:52, 1:41 and 3:31 in his fourth win over #3 Kimble.  Patterson’s path was a little longer.  He initially had the 44 second pleasure of Freeman in Round One.  Staring in the C2 round he advanced with falls in 3:54 and 0:39 prior to what must have been a blissful forfeit.  He then defeated Parkway’s Jake Morton for the third time this season and then pinned #4 Russell in 1:54.  Sure, Breska won handily, but the Panther senior deserves a lot of praise for just getting to that match.

Russell got the best of Kimble in a match in which a reversal, with 36 seconds remaining, gave the junior from Catholic a 4-2 win.

(5) Bryant Breska (CHL) pinned Tayvon Patterson (AIR) in 2:15 to place 3rd

(3) Donovan Kimble (DST) defeated (4) David Russell (CAT) 4-2 to place 5th

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Finals

In the LACL finals Lanosga rather schooled Freeman using two unexpected and very fast knee snatches, from which he scored takedowns.  Any thoughts that Lanosga would continue to dominate Freeman vanished in a 2-2 UTB Ken Cole finals match, in which Lanosga had to ride Freeman for the last 30 of 510 seconds.  The state finals match was not comfortable for Lanosga at all.  After a scoreless first period and escapes by each wrestler early in the second and third rounds, all anyone knew was that another UTB match was unlikely when Lanosga was awarded a penalty point near the end of the second period.  Hence, after Freeman’s third-period escape it was a 2-1 match, and Freeman needed a takedown to win.  That did not happen, though.  Instead, Lanosga scored a takedown with 49 seconds remaining, and was able to ride Freeman out for his first Division I state title. 

(1) Spencer Lanosga (JES) defeated (2) Ashton Freeman (ZAC) 4-1

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