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	John Paul Travasos	Zalen Wilson	Legerick Collins	Jason Zahm	Darnell Alexander	TyQuan Scott
School	Teurlings Catholic	Shaw	Carencro	Haughton	Rummel	Rayne
Seed	1	2	6	4	7	5
Class	12	12	11	10	12	12
Final Record*	36-6	26-9	11-6	18-9	9-15	25-13

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

After winning three of the first five state championships, Teurlings Catholic was 0-2 in the last five finals in which they appeared.   The Rebels did not need team points, but they never hurt.  Travasos, however, had a title to defend against Shaw's Zalen Wilson.  Travasos defeated Wilson twice during the season.  He pinned the Shaw wrestler in the fifth-place match at the Louisiana Classic.  A day earlier, however, in the LACL quarterfinals, he only squeaked by Wilson 3-2.  He would win again, but in a closer match than 3-2.

Seeding Synopsis

Defending Division II state champion John Paul Travasos won his first 10 matches until falling to East Ascension's Santos Ramos (D1 2nd) 10-7 at the Crusader Duals.  Then he won nine more before falling to Raymond Favaza of Fontainebleau (D1 3rd) in the Jacob McMillan finals.  Eleven days later he lost to Favaza again, 5-3, at the Beast of the Bayou Duals.  Still, those two are top-notch caliber opponents.  No should one consider Travasos anything less.  In the aforementioned 19 wins he defeated Ryan Corca of Brother Martin (D1 4th) twice, and Landen Carroll of Covington (D1 5th) in the George Trygg Memorial tournament.  He had previously won the Rummel 8 and the Griffin Open.  He added three more wins before the Louisiana Classic.  The LACL is notable because that is when Travasos left the 160 lbs. weight class, in which he was 22-3 with no Division II losses.  Teammate Zachary Watkins’ season ended due to an injury suffered on January 5^th.  Travasos moved up to 170 lbs. for the LACL and, despite being seeded second, had a rather inauspicious start at that weight.  He lost to Dutchtown’s Tyler Addison (D1 5th) in the semifinals 5-4.  He followed that with a 9-7 loss to Christian Otzenberger of Calvary Baptist (D3 4th).  Travasos took fifth with his second win of the tournament over Shaw’s Zalen Wilson (D2 2nd).  Three wins later, he was unexpectedly pinned by Division II Rayne’s Tyquan Scott (D2 6th) in the quarterfinals of the Ken Cole.  He came back to place third and a week later won the Lafayette Metro championship with a win over Scott.  He had a very respectable 13-3 record at 170 lbs., yet he had lost to opponents from Division II and Division III.  Was 170 lbs. asking too much?  Not according to the seeding criteria.  His wins over Wilson put him at the top.

Shaw senior Zalen Wilson had a rather stellar season until mid-January.  He suffered three losses, but two were to some tough Division I competition and one was to an even tougher Division III returning state champion.  Otherwise, he notched his belt 14 times with victories.  As it often does, the LACL rudely informed him that he still had a lot of work to do.  Seeded seventh, he fell to his main Division II competition, John Paul Travasos of Teurlings Catholic 3-2.  A match that close is not a bad loss, but he was also defeated by #4 Luke Robertson (D3 2nd), a defending Division III runner-up, 7-3 in the CSFs.  To make matters worse, in the match for fifth-place he fell to Travasos again, and this time via a fall.

At the Ken Cole Travasos and Wilson were slated to meet each other a third time in the semifinals.  But the 2^nd-seeded Travasos did not make it that far.  He was upset by Rayne’s TyQuan Scott, and Wilson went on to beat Scott and then top-seeded Tyler Addison of Dutchtown to win the event.  Placing higher than Travasos at the Ken Cole, and also beating someone who beat Travasos at the LACL, though, was not enough to deflect the two head-to-head losses against the Rebel.  Wilson was seeded second at the state championships.

Belle Chasse senior John Gagnon, who won the Bulldog Brawl and placed second at the Trygg Memorial, was seeded third.  He only had three losses to very good competition before the LACL, but he lost his first match and withdrew from his second, ending a legitimate shot at taking the second-seed spot at state. Haughton sophomore Jacob Zahm was seeded fourth.  Zahm had a good season that included runner-up finishes at the Lone Survivor and the Big Cat Brawl.  But he had seven losses to Gagnon’s five, and three were to Division III opponents.

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Early Championship Rounds

R1: (6) Ledgerrick Collins (CAR) pinned David Adkins (ND) in 2:36

Quarterfinals

Zahm had defeated Rayne’s TyQuan Scott twice during the season and their third match was no different.  The same may be said for Wilson and Rummel’s Darnell Alexander.  Travasos did as expected but Ledgerrick Collins, the #6 seed from Carencro, upset third-seeded senior John Gagnon of Belle Chasse in 5:03.

(1) John Paul Travasos (TC) pinned (8) Brock Bourgeois (PR) in 1:14

(4) Jason Zahm (HAU) pinned (5) TyQuann Scott (RAY) in 3:11

(6) Legerick Collins (CAR) pinned (3) John Gagnon (BC) in 5:03

(2) Zalen Wilson (SHW) pinned (7) Darnell Alexander (RUM) in 1:40

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Semifinals

None of the semifinals pairings were rematches and they went along with how they were seeded, pitting Travasos and Wilson together for the third time of the season in the finals.

(1) John Paul Travasos (TC) pinned (4) Jason Zahm (HAU) in 5:01

(2) Zalen Wilson (SHW) pinned (6) Legerick Collins (CAR) in 3:20

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Championship Consolation Rounds

Seeding did not matter at all to Carencro' #6,  junior Ledgerrick Collins.  Well, #2 was a bit of a problem, but #3, #4 and #5 all fell via pins to the Bear, who capped his season off with a fall in 5:01 over #4 Zahm.  John Gagnon of Belle Chasse, seeded third, was the first lower seed to fall to Collins in the quarterfinals, and he pinned #5 Tyquan Scott of Rayne in 4:04 in the consolation finals.

Rummel senior Darnell Alexander was not supposed to end up on the podium as he was a #7 seed, but after losing to Wilson in the quarterfinals, he pinned fellow senior Payton Delaune of NOMMA in 0:56, and won a tough match with the #3 Gagnon 10-9 by winning the third period 5-4.  Zahm put him into the match for fifth-place, which he won via an injury default by #5 Tyquan Scott of Rayne.  Alexander, a senior, went 4-2 in the tournament and won a fifth-place medal – overall not an awfully bad experience for a #7 seed.

(6) Legerick Collins (CAR) pinned (4) Jason Zahm in 1:00 to place 3rd

(7) Darnell Alexander (RUM) pinned (5) TyQuann Scott (RAY) in 0:14 to place 5th

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Finals

John Paul Travasos and Zalen Wilson had previously met twice.  Both matches were at the LACL.  In the quarterfinals Travasos prevailed 3-2.  Battling for fifth place, Travasos made it easier, recording a fall in 3:31.  The Division II 170 lbs. finals match would resemble their first match, but it was worse.

Neither wrestler could score in the first period of their state finals match.  Starting on the bottom to begin the second period, Travasos quickly escaped but in this period Wilson was able to take him down to gain a 2-1 lead.  In the last 40 seconds, Travasos took the lead back 3-2 with a reversal.  On bottom to start the third period, and down by one point, Wilson scored a reversal after a minute had elapsed.  Travasos immediately escaped to tie the match 4-4, which was the score as the regulation time expired.  The score remained 4-4 after the Sudden Death period as well.  In the first 30-second tie-breaker, Travasos escaped within 10 seconds.  As the second tie-breaker period commenced, Wilson needed an escape to tie the match and, if possible, just one more point to win it.  Travasos shut Wilson down though, to the point that the Shaw wrestler was warned for stalling with only one second remaining, and the finals score was 5-4 for the Rebel.  Travasos had won his second Division II state championship, the fourth for the Rebels on the evening and the third for the Travasos family.  His brother Charles won in 2020.  John Paul, however, also won the Division II Outstanding Wrestler award, sealing familial bragging rights.

(1) John Paul Travasos (TC) defeated (2) Zalen Wilson (SHW) 5-4 TB-1

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