WE ARE ADAPTIVE WRESTLING-SPECIFIC MEDIA

The week before Christmas was not just filled with the editor buying presents, brainstorming shadowbox ideas, making jewelry (ACK!), building the shadowbox, wrapping presents and experimenting with new medical devices.  It just seemed like it was.  But he got some wrestling in, also.  Well, it was only the Trey Culotta, but Culotta, Culotta, oh what a Culotta it was!  Dual meet tournaments were held, or partially held, at Evangel and St. Paul, Acadiana High School had an individual tournament and the first ever District 5-5A tournament was held at East Ascension High School.

Ketelsen Christmas Clash

The first day of the Ketelsen Christmas Clash at St. Paul on Thursday, December 22nd, was interesting enough, but the real interesting questions were not answered on the second day.  The December 23rd finale of the event was cancelled due to inclement weather.  On Thursday Holy Cross showed they are certainly a team with which to be reckoned, particularly after defeating Catholic 45-21.  The Tigers, as well as St. Paul, who narrowly defeated Holy Cross 37-31 on December 10th, were both 4-0 heading into Friday's championship rounds which were not to be.

What fans did not get to see or hear tell of was a rematch between Fontainebleau's Aiden Lindsey and Holy Cross' Nicholas DiGeralamo at 160 lbs.  In their first meeting, in the finals of the East Ascension Spartan Invitational, Lindsey upset DiGeralamo 6-4, and was voted the event's Outstanding Wrestler for doing so.  The two now may not meet until the Louisiana Classic, in which Lindsey, who started the season 8-4 but was 14-0 after the Spartan, should be the first seed.  It is possible though, that even had the two wrestled and DiGeralamo won, Lindsey might still get the higher seed.  That is how it would work at the state championships, as technically, the Christmas Clash is a lot of dual meets, and wins in dual meets take second to wins in tournaments.  The LACL, however, is not bound by such rules.

Evangel Prep Classic

The Jesuit Blue Jays traveled to the wintry weather in Shreveport for the Evangel Prep Classic, a dual meet event with schools from the northern Louisiana area,  Texas and Arkansas.  In the pool rounds on December 21st the Blue Jays defeated the El Dorado, AR Purple team 84-0, Poteau, AR 58-16, host Evangel 75-6 and St. Mark's of Texas 55-13.  In the championship bracket on Thursday Jesuit defeated South Beauregard 77-6, Byrd 84-0, the North Desoto Red team 51-24 and, in the finals, Coweta, AR 40-30.

1st: Jesuit	2nd: Coweta, Arkansas	3rd: North Desoto Red

Jesuit's Chase Haydel was voted the Outstanding Wrestler of the lower weight classes.  Coweta's Mason Kidd was the Outstanding Wrestler award winner in the heavier weight classes.

OW-L Chase Haydel of Jesuit	OW-H Mason Kidd of Coweta

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District 5-5A Championships

The East Ascension Spartans won the first District 5-5A Championships, outscoring Live Oak 221.5 to 206.5.   St. Amant was third with 169.5 points, followed by Dutchtown (159 points) and Walker (70 points). 

The Spartans won six individual championships, followed by Dutchtown with three, Live Oak and St. Amant with two apiece and Walker with one. 

Championship trophy held by Aiden Krass	East Ascension winners Holden Wempren, Jacobi Clement, Jacob Schexnaydre, Lucas Maneckshaw, Aiden Krass and  Gabriel Bonin	Krassi?	Dutchtown champions Foster Shank. Cole Mire and Cole Gross	Dutchtown's Cole Mire

(Yes, if your mother or father truly loved you, I would have stolen your photos from Facebook as well.)

District 5-5A Varsity Champions

JV-Select

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Dutchtown's Foster Shank remained undefeated at 152 lbs., reaching the 20-0 mark. 

At 120 lbs. Cole Mire of Dutchtown defeated Kye Karcher of Walker 5-3, which is the closest Karcher has come to Mire this season after losses of 7-0 and 8-2.  Karcher should take heart in that he narrowed the gap to a two-point margin.  That is exactly what Mire did last season as he narrowed the margin between himself and Jacob Elsensohn of Brother Martin, resulting in a semifinals upset at the state championships.  Then, again, Karcher should know that the senior Mire may consider the two-point win a "wakeup call."  And as if having Mire and Karcher at the same tournament does not make 120 lbs. hard enough, consider that one 120 lbs. wrestler with a win over Mire, Jesuit's Bodi Harris, was at Evangel.   Then, arguably, if one just has to argue for no reason, recall that feasibly the best (so far) three 120 lbs. wrestlers in the state, Landon Reaux of Southside, Jacob Elsensohn of Brother Martin and Tyson Roach of Sam Houston, were at the Trey Culotta.  Blake, Alex, Brock, Matthew and Gehrig (how cool is that first name?!), y'all are in an utterly ridiculously strong weight class.

Acadiana Invitational

Team points were not kept at the Acadiana Invitational, but had they been it is likely the Rayne Wolves would have prevailed.  The Wolves had four champions, a runner-up and three third-place finishers.  Comeaux, North Vermillion and Kaplan had two champions apiece.  Church Point had one entrant and won one corresponding championship, and the host Acadiana Rams had a champion in sophomore Cayden Richard.  Richard has earned his tournament title after a season thus far with two runner-up awards, two third-place finishes and three fourth-place finishes.  There is one 126 lbs. wrestler Richard has not met, though.  Things will only get harder, but that's why we do it, right?

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Trey Culotta

Brother Martin ran away with the Trey Culotta Invitational, scoring 386 points versus runner-up Christian Brothers' (TN) 293.5, at the Trey Culotta Invitational, held on Wednesday and Thursday at Brother Martin.  Teams from Alabama, Georgia and Texas took the next four spots.  De la Salle, with 174.5 points, placed seventh and Southside placed 10th.  The Crusaders had two champions, albeit one won via a forfeit.  Anthony Oubre received a finals forfeit at 106 lbs. and Richie Clementi remained undefeated by winning the 132 lbs. championship.  McAdory, Alabama, which placed third, had four champions.  The Crusaders had four runners-up that actually wrestled finals matches. 

Other Louisiana winners were De la Salle's Dylan Duvernay, Southside's Landon Reaux and Basile's Luc Johnson.

Southside senior Wiley Boudreaux did what a select few have done in the past by dropping to a lower weight class to face the so far indomitable Clementi.  The last time someone of Boudreaux's caliber did so, just for the challenge, was when Rummel's Jacob Ramirez, who as a junior won the Louisiana Classic, dropped to 138 lbs. as a senior to challenge Holy Cross' Jacob Frost.  The result for Boudreaux was the same as that for Ramirez - both lost via technical falls.  Boudreaux will probably move back to 138 lbs. where he is undefeated this season.

Aside from a beautiful day on Thursday, which to the editor means highly overcast but not wet, what made the editor leave his shadowbox tinkering was the 120 lbs. weight class.  Somewhat unexpectedly (albeit smartly for some wrestlers) the 120 lbs. weight class was the smallest of the event, having only 11 entrants.  That three were 2021 Southside state champion Landon Reaux, 2022 state champion Tyson Roach of Sam Houston and 2022 third-place winner and state favorite so far this season, Jacob Elsensohn, might have had something to do with that.  Due to that fact, though, only two pools were held in the 120 lbs. weight class on Wednesday.  Elsensohn had already defeated Roach on November 26th, and on Wednesday he defeated Reaux 7-4 in the pool round.  In doing so he temporarily laid claim to being the best at 120 lbs. in the state's most absurdly hard weight class.

What Elsensohn may not have known, but which Roach knows far too well, as do 2021 graduates Ashton Sonnier of Teurlings Catholic and Dylan Moser of Brother Martin, is that Reaux is not very fond of losing.  In Thursday's championship bracket Reaux would face Roach in the semifinals before he got another chance at Elsensohn.  Roach won their first match this season 13-1 MD.  Reaux responded with a 16-9 win six days later.  Reaux tweaked something and forfeited what would have been their third match at the Ronnie Suarez tournament, but fell to Roach 14-5 MD in the Jacob McMillan finals.  Come Thursday, Roach was in Reaux's way to another shot at Elsensohn.

[Being that an Outstanding Wrestler award was not awarded, which blew one headline I was going to use, I decided on a graphic that, despite that I know Reaux is pronounced with two syllables, I will not be denied.  After a first round fall over Matthew Gallman of Benton (nee Parkway):

In the semifinals against Roach, Reaux opened up a 12-6 lead, frittered away five points in the last half of the match, but came out winning 12-11.  Five of Reaux's points were from nearfalls. Against Elsensohn, Reaux scored the first takedown and allowed an escape to take a 2-1 first-period lead.  In the second period Elsensohn chose the bottom position, scored a reversal in the first 30 seconds and rode Reaux out, taking a 3-2 lead into the third period.  Reaux had the choice of position to start the third period.  One would think he would choose the bottom to score an escape and tie the match before trying for a winning takedown.  From my vantage point, he did not care.  He just wanted to get started again, and feasibly put up his hands indicating a standing start just to get wrestling again.  After 1:10 he scored a takedown to take a 4-3 lead.  Then he turned a wicked cross-face into a cradle for three back-points.  His lead now, with less than 30 seconds remaining, was 7-3.  He allowed a reversal by Elsensohn so as not to put himself in jeopardy fighting it off, but got the last points in with a reversal with 15 seconds left.  He won 9-5.  The next time these three are together, it should be, should seeding hold, Reaux waiting for the winner of an Elsensohn-Roach match.  Those two may have a reinvigorated Kye Karcher of Walker to get through first, though.  Reaux's journey will be no less arduous, as he should have Bodi Harris of Jesuit and Cole Mire of Dutchtown on his side of the bracket.

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