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	Collin Veron	Dorion Wilkinson	Brevan Fields	Rowan Garrity	Adam LeBlanc	Evan Harding
School	De la Salle	St. Michael	Basile	Thomas Jefferson	Brusly	Hannan
Seed	1	2	3	6	4	NS
Class	12	12	12	11	11	11
Final Record*	11-3	34-13	18-11	6-12	9-12	6-17

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

In December of 2020 De la Salle’s Collin Veron made it to the finals of the Trey Culotta Invitational.  There he met three-time Division I runner-up and the top-ranked 132 lbs. wrestler in the state, Brother Martin’s Ethan Castex.  The official score of the match was 11-2 MD.  But that could justifiably be called the “second” finals match between the two.  The “first” match was quite a different story.  It only lasted two minutes, but it ended in a 6-6 tie in which Veron more than proved he could hang with the best.  Unfortunately, the officials made an errant call in giving Veron the first takedown, and, as there was not a stoppage of action in the first period, the match continued until the first period ended.  The officials recognized their error and the entire two minutes was deemed “bad time” and not counted.  That took a lot of wind out of Veron’s sails, and Castex prevailed 11-2 MD over the subsequent six minutes.

That was Veron’s second loss of the 2020-21season.  A week earlier at the Brusly “Eightish,” he succumbed to a fall by St. Michael’s Dorion Wilkinson in 3:49.  Wilkinson ended the season placing fifth (albeit seeded sixth) at 132 lbs. in Division III.  Veron, seeded fifth, placed third at 126 lbs.

Culotta onlookers knew the young man was very good. 

Seeding Synopsis

This season, St. Michael senior Dorion Wilkinson started at 138 lbs., and he was successful, winning the Warrior Open, tying for fifth at the Griffin Open and placing third in the Spartan Invitational.  He made it to 132 the day before the Brusly Invitational.  The Cavalier senior Veron did not start the season until the Brusly Invitational and started at 132 lbs.  He met Wilkinson for the second time in two years in the finals and soundly defeated the St. Michael senior 20-7 MD.  He also placed sixth at the Louisiana Classic, going 4-3, losing to two soon-to-be Division II state champions (North Desoto's Daniel Olivier and Rummel's Carter Burgess) and a Division I second seed (Catholic's Jon Michael Cuba).  Wilkinson went 0-2 at the Louisiana Classic, which sealed Veron’s spot as the top seed.

Over the season Veron had wins over Shaw's Hayden Tassin (D2 3rd), 2021 runner-up Caleb Andrews of Belle Chasse (D2 4th) and Chalmette's Mohammed Gaber.  Wilkinson defeated Tassin also, as well as St. Amant's Cole Didier, Henry Hebert of St. Louis (D3 3rd), Tyler Villareal from Haughton (D2 3rd) and split matches with Zachary's Ethan White.

Basile senior Brevan Fields was seeded third.  He had three Division III losses (Veron and twice to Hebert of St. Louis), and re a common opponent of Wilkinson, he lost 5-2 to Acadiana’s Seth Choate.  Wilkinson also lost twice to Choate, but each match was a 9-7 match – one decided in a Sudden Victory round and one after a Tie-breaker-1 round.  Either reason was enough to seed him beneath Wilkinson.  Fields had a win over #4 Adam LeBlanc of Brusly, who had a win over #5 Aidyn Cabiro of Haynes.  Figuring out the rest of the seeding has “migraine” written all over it.  Cabiro, #6 Rowan Garrity of Thomas Jefferson and #7 Finn Gage of St. Louis had three wins each.  The eighth seed had no wins.  Evan Hardin of Hannan, technically seeded 15^th, had four wins.  Aydan Green of South Beauregard had six wins, including one over Harding, and he was technically seeded 12^th.   Was seeding criteria followed in this instance?  Mayhaps.  Hopefully.  But sometimes one just has to let it go.  I mean I have to let it go – not the seeding committee.

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Quarterfinals

South Beauregard freshman Ayden Green displayed his seeding displeasure with a first-round win over #5 Cabrio in 4:41.  Taking nothing away from that win, it was still the top four seeds who advanced to the semifinals.  Green ended up one match shy of a spot on the podium.

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Semifinals

Veron and Wilkinson did their jobs, setting up a career tie-breaking third match between them.

(1) Collin Veron (DLS) pinned (4) Adam LeBlanc (BRU) in 0:54

(2) Dorion Wilkinson (StM) pinned (3) Brevan Fields (BAS) in 1:13

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Championship Consolation Rounds

The sixth-seeded Thomas Jefferson Panther Garrity showed his seeding contempt with wins over #5 Cabiro and #4 LeBlanc to set-up a match for third with Fields.  Harding knocked off Bostick and then Green before falling to Fields, albeit earning a match against LeBlanc for fifth.

(3) Brevan Fields (BAS) pinned (6) Rowan Garrity (TJ) in 0:40 to place 3rd

(4) Adam LeBlanc (BRU) pinned Evan Harding (HAN) in 4:00 to place 5th

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Finals

Veron just shut down Wilkinson in the finals.  After two periods Veron had scored three takedowns and a two-point nearfall while limiting Wilkinson to three escapes.  Starting the third period on the bottom, Veron reversed Wilkinson to his back and scored a fall 15 seconds into the period, giving the Cavaliers their third state championship of the night.  Just as Cavalier teammate Dylan Duvernay did, Veron pinned all of his opponents (in times of 0:28, 0:40, 0:54 and 4:15).

(1) Collin Veron (DLS) pinned (2) Dorion Wilkinson (StM) in 4:15

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