Holy Cross finishes second, Rummel comes in fourth
FRED ALDRICH
Special to The Advocate
Teams from New Orleans finished at the top of the team scoring, while
individual titles went to wrestlers from 10 high schools across
Louisiana and one from Mississippi following the finals of the Louisiana
Classics Wrestling Tournament at Exerfit of Baton Rouge on Saturday.
Jesuit claimed the team championship with 226.5 points, followed by
Holy Cross with 209.5. Tourney host Catholic High (178.5 points) was
third, followed by Rummel (172.0) and Brusly. Live Oak (110.5) and
East Ascension (99.0) rounded out the top seven.
Jesuit coach Spencer Harris, who won a championship of his own in
1986 when the tournament was the Lee High Invitational, said he liked
what he saw in his team.
“We wrestled a man down this weekend so we only had 13 in,” Harris
said, “and we had a couple of guys who had to fill in for a couple of
our starters who were injured, and they really wrestled tough all across
the board.
“We had a kind of a tough day (Saturday) with 10 in the semifinals
and only four in the finals, but all in all I’m very proud of them.”
Jesuit’s only individual champion was Guy Patron, a 15-0 winner over
Brendan Allen of Covington at 184 pounds. But the Blue Jays more than
picked up any slack that was left when pre-tourney favorite Brother
Martin dropped out the tourney late in the week.
Freshman Kendon Lee of Brusly continued his magical year with an 8-1 win over
Nicholas Charles of Jesuit at 115 to run his season record to 45-1. His only
loss this season was to Tristan Ruppert of Ocean Springs, Miss., a defeat he
avenged in a later match.
“Brusly hasn’t had an individual champion in a very long time and I’ve been
dreaming of this for a long time,” Lee said. “I got a five-point move early (on
a takedown and near fall) and just tried to play it safe while I looked for my
offense.”
Ruppert was named the meet’s outstanding wrestler after he defeated Ben
D’Antonio of Jesuit 10-5 in the 122-pound division.
Lee’s teammate, senior Trevor Schermer, gave Brusly a
second champion by defeating Brennan Taylor of Catholic 10-4 at 140.
Catholic also had an individual champion in Matthew Mire (39-4), who won at
154. Mire won a 5-3 decision over John Ehret’s Jack Fontenot.
Cody Hill of Live Oak ran his season record to 55-3 with a 14-3 major
decision over Christian Walden of Airline. It was Hill’s second Classics title,
his 221st career win and another leg up in his campaign to become Louisiana’s
all-time high school wins leader. The current record is 230.
Team runner-up Holy Cross finished with three individual champions, George
Benoit at 134, Brice Duhe at 172 and Daniel Relayson at 197.
It was not an especially good tournament for No. 1 seeds as six of the 14
failed to win a title. Among the most surprising were undefeated 287-pounder
Connor Karwath of East Ascension, who finished fourth, and Catholic’s James
Claitor (147) who took third place. Christian Ponson of Fontainebleau won at 287
and third seed Rick LaCava of Rummel won at 147.
LaCava broke open a close match with Bryce Ballas of Shaw in the third round
to take a 12-6 win. “This is pretty exciting,” LaCava said. “I was nervous
coming into this one. I was in the finals last year, but this was different. I
think I was supposed to win (against Ballas). Once my nerves got settled, I got
into my normal offense.”
In a battle of once-beaten wrestlers, Tanner LeBlanc of St. Paul’s (39-1)
eked out a 6-5 win over top-seeded and defending state champion Alex Martin of
DeLaSalle (33-2) at 162.
Tournament director Tommy Prochaska of Catholic High gave a high grade to
this year’s Classic.
“Great tournament competition-wise, some tough weight classes. We had a good
mix of winners, and matches ran fast, without any hiccups,” he said.
