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Griffins win their first Division II team championship

Division II Brackets in PDF

North Desoto wins its first Division II title

Six state champions, two runners-up, one third-place finish, one fourth-place finish and 297 points would have won 11 Division II team championships since 2010.  Granted, that would have meant the Teurlings Catholic Rebels beating themselves eight times, but that total would have beaten Parkway in 2018 and 2019, Holy Cross in 2013 and St. Michael in 2010.

Yet 66.5 points behind Teurlings Catholic was Rummel, followed by St. Thomas More with 209.5 points.   Hence, 297 points was not enough for the Rebels to claim their fifth-consecutive Division II title. 

The North Desoto Griffins scored the other points.  Their total was 326 points.  The Griffins had one fourth-place and one fifth-place finisher.  They had three who placed third.  Eight of the remaining nine wrestlers were in the finals and four of those won state championships.  The Griffins, who only started wrestling in 2012, became a Division II team to take seriously when they placed third in 2019.  In the next four years they placed fourth once and brought home the runner-up trophy three times.  That may have cramped Coach Dustin Burton's "style" a little bit, though, as it is hard to play "Air Brother Melchior Trophy."  That is a sacrifice Burton will easily accept.

For years I have suggested Coach Burton take his team to more Louisiana events to become familiar with the competition his kids would face at the state championships.  I was right, of course, for so many years, but now that argument is moot.  It is bad enough that in three of my four state championship losses Donny Burton was in the opposing coach's chair.  Now I have his son making me look bad!

Teurlings Catholic won six individual titles.  North Desoto won four and Rummel won three.  Sam Houston's Caleb Lavine won the remaining title.

Division II now has three sophomore two-time winners (Alex Rozas, Dalton Compton and Braedon Simoneaux).  It has two freshmen winners vying for four state titles as well.  They are North Desoto's Hayden Bell and Carter Macha of Teurlings Catholic.

I looked for any less simple reason why North Desoto went from scoring 305 points to place second in 2023 to scoring 326 points to win in 2024.  I calculated bonus points, but, while ND had more falls than TC, TC scored more bonus points.  I checked if a school, in this case Rummel and St. Thomas More, which placed third and fourth respectively, had inordinate amounts of matches against TC.   But no, that did not fly.

The simplest reason remains, which is that the Griffins got to wrestle 10 more matches than the Rebels did.  This means the Griffins went deeper into the tournament than the Rebels did.  Teurlings Catholic had four wrestlers who did not place (or make the podium and score placement points).  North Desoto only had one.

Division II State Champions: North Desoto Griffins

L-R: Division II individual champions; North Desoto coach Matt Rabinowitz with several trophies; Teurlings Catholic with fans

L-R: Eight of nine Rummel placers; Comeaux placers; North Vermillion placers

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THAT WHICH I CAN RECALL

106 Pounds

Rummel second seeds won three of the first four titles.  At 106 lbs. Landon Monica bested #1 Bryce Latino of Lakeshore 9-5.  Latino knocked Monica out of the medal matches at the Louisiana Classic (LACL) via a fall in 3:00.  At 113 lbs. freshman Dominick Durham beat North Desoto's Jacob Kershaw 3-1.  Kershaw defeated Durham 9-7 in the LACL semifinals.  One match later Kaiden Triche won his second Division II championship with a 3-2 win over North Desoto's Nathan Adams.  Adams scored a fall over Triche in 2:57 in the second round of the LACL.

I freely admit that while I had three monitors on my desk during the finals, one dedicated to each division, I mainly watched the Division I finals.  There was, of course, one Division II finals match I wanted to see.  That was at 120 lbs., but the Division I 113 lbs. match ended near the end of the second period, so I got to see Rummel freshman Dominick Durham defeat North Desoto's Jacob Kershaw.  Kershaw beat Durham in the Louisiana Classic semifinals 9-7, but Durham prevailed 3-1 in the Division II finals match.  Durham, a freshman, is on the hunt for four state championships.

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120 Pounds

The match I wanted to see was the Division II 120 lbs. final.  It was a rematch of the Trey Culotta finals between Teurlings Catholic's Alex Rozas and Sam Houston's Tyson Roach.  The Rebel sophomore defeated the Bronco senior in a match that seemed closer than the 7-4 final score.  Roach wrestled at 126 lbs. at the Louisiana Classic.  That was the weight class in which the Gilroy, California team started their finals domination.  At the state championships, however, a 2022 Division I state champion and a 2023 Division II state champion, went down to 120 lbs. again.  He probably could have easily won another Division II championship at 126 lbs., particularly as he learned not to take Division II opponents  "for granted" after his 2023 state finals "learning experience."  Rozas won the match 7-0, but Roach held his head high as he knows he went against arguably the best "pound-for-pound" wrestler in the state.  (I wrote "arguably" because that designation could easily go to Brother Martin's Ritchie Clementi.) 

I first heard of Tyson Roach from covering the 2021 Fargo Nationals.  I first met him at the 2021 St. Michael Warrior Open.  I found myself next to a Sam Houston mother and I asked her where I could find Tyson.  She told me he was the kid across the gym taking his pants off.  I know now that I entered his name as "Tyler Roach."  If I do not delete the last two sentences, he might want me to keep that error.

Rozas is on his way to becoming a four-time Division II state champion who has to a Louisiana opponent.  I expect that to happen and that he will do so in a very gracious manner.  I will miss not seeing him wrestle as much as I have seen others over the last 12 years.  Tyson, though, epitomizes what I want the sport to be in Louisiana.  Prior to the 2023 Ken Cole finals, which Roach knew would be his last match against Southside's Landon Reaux, he asked me to make sure I took a photograph of the two of them after the match.  Reaux, of course, one of my favorites as well, was in full agreement.  I forgot until Tyson got my attention.

After his loss to Rozas in the 2024 finals, prior to driving back to Lake Charles, Tyson asked his father/coach to wait a few minutes so Tyson could run a few miles.  University of Arkansas Little Rock and NCAA Division I as a whole best watch the new kid from Louisiana.  And I am going to have to stop 'dissing Arkansas.  My mother was born in Pine Bluff and I spent six weeks of my summers between fourth and ninth grades on my grandfather's farm just outside of Pine Bluff.  Yet I have to respect how fast and well wrestling has grown in that state over, what, maybe 15 years, if that?

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126 Pounds

138 Pounds

In 2023 TCs Brennan Boyer gave up five points in the last 20 seconds to lose a state finals match to Tyson Roach.  After coming so close to becoming only the third wrestler to defeat Roach that season (Southside's Landon Reaux did so four times and Brother Martin's Jacob Elsensohn did it once), Boyer wore the same smile he showed after winning his finals match over North Vermillion's Cameron Hebert at this event.   Sam Houston's Caleb Lavine returned from an injury-plagued sophomore season to beat 2022 state champion and 2023 runner-up Brennan Romero of TC.

144 Pounds

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North Desoto's Dalton Compton trod on new ground this year at the state championships.   That is not a metaphor for winning a state championship.  That is a fact, as this year the sophomore was able to get atop the podium.  Compton is now halfway to becoming a four-time Division II state champion. Joining Compton in that quest is Griffin freshman Hayden Bell.  Bell took care of #1 seed Tristan Kimball  of Terrebonne in 3:50 and #6 Jay Hays of St. Thomas More took care of #2 Luke Cusachs in 2:10.

150 Pounds

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157 Pounds

Brandt Babineaux, Chase Smart and everyone's favorite Scientologist, Tom Cruise. Word to the wise: just stay away from TC's Brandt Babineaux in the 2024-25 season. In 2022 he was seeded and placed second to North Desoto's Daniel Olivier in a 7-6 match.  In 2023, as a #1 seed, he lost 3-1 SV to North Desoto's Dalton Compton.  This season, again the #1 seed, he fell to North Desoto's #2 seed Chase Smart 1-0.  In three finals appearances he lost by six points.  (Yes, that needs explaining.  One does not lose a 7-6 match by one point.  That one point only ties the match, it does not win it for the one down by a point.  Two points wins the match in regulation.  Hence, Babineaux needed two points to win the 7-6 and 1-0 matches.  The SV points remain at two since the match is over once a takedown is scored.  Hello...is anyone still here?) Smart scored the only point in the match via an escape in the second period.  Then the Griffin was able to ride-out the remaining 3:16.  He was seeded second because he had three losses on his record while Babineaux had only two.  Everyone who placed at 157 lbs. in Division II is a junior, so avoiding Babineaux may be hard.

165 Pounds

Braedon Simoneaux is another Rebel wrestler who is halfway to becoming a four-time Division II state champion.  Last season, as a freshman, Simoneaux's only losses were to East Ascension's Gabriel Bonin, a 2023 Division I runner-up, and to Landry Barker, a two-time Division I state champion.  He avenged the loss to Bonin and defeated North Desoto's returning state champion Hunter Addison three times, most importantly in the state finals in a 6-4 SV match.

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TC won four of the last five titles, but, fittingly, North Desoto had the final win at 285 lbs.

TC freshman Carter Macha, junior Pike Landry, senior Kendra James and ND junior Cade Burns finished the Division II competition.

175 Pounds

190 Pounds

215 Pounds

285 Pounds

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