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	Jude Monaco	Reid Bourgeois	Luke Brunson	Jacob Freeman	Kayden Carriere	Jace Gibson
School	Shaw	Teurlings Catholic	Caddo Magnate	North Desoto	Rayne	Belle Chasse
Seed	1	2	6	5	3	NS
Class	12	12	11	12	11	11
Final Record*	31-0	24-3	14-5	21-6	30-13	6-15

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

Only three points (two would mean a tie) kept Shaw senior Jude Monaco from a perfect season.  It was a 7-5 loss to Rockwall Heath's (Texas) Bryce Milster, and explains why Monaco did not win a second Louisiana Classic title.  He did win everything else, though, including his second Division II state championship.

Seeding Synopsis

Listing who defending Division II state champion Jude Monaco beat this season is not necessary.  He won a match at 220 lbs.  He was 10-0 at 195 lbs. and 16-0 at 182 lbs.  He beat everyone, except for that one kid from Texas.  Oddly, that was the only event in which the kid participated according to TrackWrestling – as if he were just briefly placed on the earth to remind Monaco that he was human.

Monaco placed third in the LACL, but he won the event in 2021.  In the 2021-22 season he won the Ken Cole and the District 9-5A Championships.  He beat the Division I state champion from Catholic, Thomas Domangue, twice.  He beat the Division I #1 seed, Winn McConnell of Jesuit (D1 2nd), and the #2 seed, East Ascension's Corey Holmes (D1 3rd).  He beat the Division II runner-up at 195 lbs., Eric Levert of Teurlings Catholic.  Twenty-four of his wins were via falls.  Y’all get the point, right - Monaco was the #1 seed.

Seeded second was another defending Division II state champion - Teurlings Catholic senior Reid Bourgeois.  Bourgeois split matches with McConnell and defeated Domangue and Holmes.  Bourgeois was on the other half of the LACL bracket so he also lost to the same Texas specter as Monaco did, but in the LACL finals.  He placed second at the Black Horse, won the Jacob McMillan and was a runner-up to Monaco at the Ken Cole. 

Rayne’s Kaden Carrier was seeded third.  The Wolf junior had a very good season with a Spartan Invitational JV title and a Lafayette Metro title, a runner-up finish at the Lone Survivor and fourth-place finishes at the Jacob McMillan and the Ken Cole.  He fell to Bourgeois in 3:18 in a dual meet but he defeated Rummel’s Neil Borne in the Ken Cole.  Borne was seeded fourth and had a 21-14 record.

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Quarterfinals

Jacob Freeman of North Desoto, the fifth-seed, upset Borne via a fall in 4:36, but the real quarterfinals upset was #6 Luke Brunson of Caddo Magnate defeating the third-seeded Carrier 13-4 MD.  It was not a terribly surprising upset, as Carrier won the previous match between the two via a 2-1 UTB score.  But Brunson had lost to Freeman and thus it was a #6 over #3 match.

(1) Jude Monaco (SHW) pinned (8) Robert Presser (StTM) in 0:59

(5) Jacob Freeman (ND) pinned (4) Neil Borne (RUM) in 4:36

(6) Luke Brunson (CAD) defeated (3) Kaydon Carrier (RAY) 13-4 MD

(2) Reid Bourgeois (TC) pinned (7) Trenton Hart (NOMMA) in 3:14

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Semifinals

Neither Monaco nor Bourgeois faced who they might have expected in the semifinals, but the results were the same.  Monaco won via a fall in 3:00 and Bourgeois in 3:36.

(1) Jude Monaco (SHW) pinned (5) Jacob Freeman (ND) in 3:00

(2) Reid Bourgeois (TC) pinned (6) Luke Brunson (CAD) in 3:36

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Championship Consolation Rounds

Belle Chasse junior Jace Gibson gets the “feel good” award for the consolation rounds.  Gibson had the pleasure of Bourgeois in his first match, and as that did not go too well for him, he made his next three opponents pay for it via falls in 0:08 (how, exactly, does one do that?), 2:05 and 2:20.  Not one to seize all of the consolation rounds glory, he fell to #6 Brunson in the CSFs and then to Carrier in the match for fifth place.  He was the only non-seeded wrestler in his weight class to stand on the podium, though, and he will be back next season.

Brunson got a rematch with Freeman in the consolation finals after Freeman denied Carrier a chance for third with a 7-2 win.  Brunson was not very forgiving re his UTB loss to Freeman in the David Beeson Memorial finals, and scored the first seven points in a 10-2 MD win.

(6) Luke Brunson (CAD) defeated (5) Jacob Freeman (CAD) 10-2 MD to place 3rd

(3) Kaydon Carrier (RAY) pinned Jace Gibson (BC) in 2:34 to place 5th

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Finals

Monaco dominated this match, even in the third period when the two wrestlers each scored four points.  In the first two periods he scored two takedowns and an escape, while allowing only one escape from Bourgeois, to take a 5-1 lead into the third.  The four-point margin was all he required, albeit the actual score would change.  In the next four minutes, Bourgeois scored three escapes and was given a penalty point, but Monaco answered the first two escapes with takedowns.  Overall, Monaco scored four takedowns and an escape to Bourgeois' four escapes and a penalty point.

(1) Jude Monaco (SHW) defeated (2) Reid Bourgeois (TC) 9-5

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