2012-13 Results and Media Coverage
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| Catholic's varsity and junior varsity wrestlers gather Saturday to celebrate an 11th straight Baton Rouge City Championship. - (Jerit Roser, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune) | Matthew Moreau, Catholic |
Grant Godso, Redemptorist
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Home, sweet home stayed that way Saturday for the Catholic-Baton Rouge wrestling team.
Eight Bears won their weight class to lead an 11th straight Baton Rouge City Championship and secure the right to host the tournament again next season. A final team score of 327.0 points, compared to No. 2 Brusly's 200.0, nearly matched last year's dominant 327.5-194.0 margin over 2012 runner-up East Ascension.
"We did real well," Coach Tommy Prochaska said. "We had some goals set just because it's hard sometimes to get the guys motivated just because they've wrestled the guys so many times. We just set some goals, and one of them was to get as many guys in the finals as we could. Then in the finals, it was to get more than eight champs because that's what we had last year, and we always try to do a little better. We tied it. We had two tough losses, but overall we wrestled well, and the guys that were in consolation wrestled well, too."
Catholic earned semifinal berths in 11 of the 14 weight classes Saturday morning. Ten Bears reached the afternoon's finals, and eight claimed individual titles.
"As a team, we're trying to keep the tradition here going," said 197-pound champion Caleb Sutton. "And it's kind of like a prep for state, so it prepares you for state as well, kind of gets your confidence up and gives you good practice to get you ready." Sutton was one of two Catholic wrestlers to successfully repeat as individual champions.
Brandon Luckett recorded his third pin in three weekend matches in the 162-pound bracket to clinch his third straight city title, matching older brother John Paul Luckett's previous accomplishment. "My brother came and watched me today, so I got to talk to him about it," Brandon Luckett said. "It was awesome."
Mitch Napoli, Phillip Nauta, James Claitor, Kevin Moran, Matthew Moreau and Christian Pittman each took their first event championships.
Brennan Taylor and Matthew Mire finished second in their respective classes, and Myles Nash won the 222-pound 3rd-place matchup.
"Coach Tommy always tells us if we lose and it's true wrestle-backs, we've gotta wrestle back our hardest and get as many points as possible," Nash said. "I just took that to mind, and I got the pin that we needed and got some bonus points. Team over self."
Moreau overcame 172-pound top seed Brody Bonura of Live Oak, 12-6, in the semifinals, then pinned No. 2 Travis Goodman of Dutchtown to earn Outstanding Wrestler honors for the upper weight classes. "It's awesome," Moreau said. "I've been working real hard in practice. Everybody's been pushing me — all my coaches and teammates — so it feels good to be city champ, and Outstanding Wrestler's just a little more icing on the cake. We've still got one more big opportunity ahead of us in the state meet, and that's what we're going after."
Youth teammate Cody Hill of Live Oak beat Taylor in the 128-pound finals to take the lower weights' Outstanding Wrestler award.
East Ascension's Alex Betteridge (106) and Connor Karwath (287) bookended the individual championships.
Brusly's Trevor Schermer, Redemptorist's Grant Godso and Zachary's Christophe Wright won the 134-, 140- and 222-pound brackets, respectively.
Godso, a defending Division III state champion, said the 2012 city championships motivated him throughout this season. "At city last year, I lost in overtime to the No. 1 seed, (Catholic's) Ryan Toups," Godso said. "That was a big loss for me. It drove me through the entire year, and this kind of helped resolve all of that and tie up loose ends."
Brusly finished the semifinals 5-2 amid its climb Saturday from No. 4 to No. 2.
Live Oak took third with 196.0 points, followed by No. 4 Dutchtown (186.0), No. 5 East Ascension (132.0), No. 6 Zachary (128.5) and No. 7 St. Michael (118.5).
"We had a nice semifinal round, and we had a nice consolation quarterfinal round," Brusly Coach Jimmy Bible said. "We took our lumps in the next two rounds, but for our team as young as we are, coming out second in this tournament is huge. This was supposed to be between Live Oak and Dutchtown for the second-place spot, but we came back, and the kids wrestled hard, and it paid off."