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Eagles ravage Division III by 61.5 points

Division III Brackets in PDF

Shaw wins five of eight finals matches without their only 2023 titlist

Last year Archbishop Shaw had five finalists.  Only one, however, won his finals match, and the Eagles won over Basile by 2.5 points.  Caden Judice, at 106 lbs., was the Eagle that won, but Caden left the Eagles for Pennsylvania for his sophomore year.  OK, Pennsylvania has some pretty good Eagles as well.)  In 2024 the Eagles had eight finalists and five of them won.  Hence, in defense of their first wrestling state championship they outscored the runner-up team 263.5 to 202.  And that team was not Basile or even De la Salle, despite their three state champions. 

It was John Curtis. 

I did not count the Patriots out as early as my September 30th preview.  A few weeks before that I emailed or FB IM'd Coach John Kendrick that the Patriots still had a shot at the runner-up trophy. Ten Patriots made it to the podium, including Brandon Dang who won his second state championship.  Being old, half-blind and correct is a nice feeling.

Repeat Division III team champions Shaw and the trophies involved

John Curtis runner-up photo, two-time Patriot state champion Brendan Dang and Coach John Kendrick with the runner-up plaque

Michael Gilreath, Coach John Tademy and Joseph Gilreath of Evangel

I did six write-ups of Division III finals matches.  After that I believe I was doing Division III and injustice.  There are more factors involved in each weight class than just those associated with the finalists.  Unfortunately, via the two events I saw in person and the others I saw on Varsity Sports Now, I really do not know enough to give Division III weight classes the respect they deserve.  Anything I write will be available on the LHSWA website.  Yet I will keep the blurbs I already wrote.

Matches

106 Pounds

During the season Basile freshman Logan Bergeron was undefeated against Division III competition.  One of those matches was a 4-0 win over Shaw freshman Kale Muscarello in the finals of the Jimmy Vidrine Division III Invitational.  His losses came from Division II's Chevy Coleman of Sam Houston (he defeated Coleman twice later in the season) and Brusly's Braylin Poston.  His other two losses were to Division I wrestlers Brady Hunter of Jesuit and Anthony Carrion of Lafayette. 

Aside from the Vidrine D3, Bergeron won the Jacob McMillan and the Lafayette Metro.  He placed second at the Acadiana Invitational and the Rayne Invitational. 

Muscarello won the Spartan Invitational and the Duplessis Invitational, placed third at the Trygg/Sara and sixth at the Ken Cole.

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113 Pounds

Shaw freshman Jayden Jamison won the only tournament he needed to win against the only opponent he had to beat.  He won the Jimmy Vidrine Division III Invitational over St. Edmund's eighth-grader Cooper Berzas.  That feat does not guarantee a #1 seed, but when mixed with not losing to any Division III opponents and placing third at the Jacob McMillan it works fairly well. 

Jamison's finals opponent was an eighth-grader from a school of which I did not know existed.  No worries there, though, as I have no doubt there is a large percentage of coaches who never knew St. Martin's once had a wrestling team.  In his first year he posted a record of 21-4.  I can at least say I was undefeated in my eighth-grade year.  In the fall of 1976, I did not even know what wrestling was, so I was 0-0 that season, and would not enjoy another undefeated season until my third year at Texas when I was 3-0.

Berzas won the Acadiana Invitational, the Jacob McMillan JV, the Rayne Invitational and the Lafayette Metro.  Aside from the two losses to Jamison he lost to Division II's Devin Viers of Parkway and Josh Carrero of Division I's East Ascension.

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120 Pounds

If one is going to lose only three of 50 matches (recall, I do not count losses to out-of-state opponents) then one would be hard pressed to find better ones than the three who defeated De la Salle's Dylan Duvernay: Alex Rozas, a two-time Division II state champion who has yet to lose to a Louisiana wrestler (and probably will not in the next two years); Sam Houston's Tyson Roach, a 2022 Division I state champion and 2023 Division II state champion; Jesuit's Bodi Harris, a 2023 and 2024 Division I state champion.  In 2022 Harris was a Division I runner-up to Roach.  In 2024 Roach was a runner-up to Rozas.  Nevertheless, Duvernay parlayed such competition into a really good season.  He won the Warrior Open at 120 lbs. over Holy Cross' Anthony Oubre, who would win the 2024 Division I state championship  at 113 pounds.  He also defeated Airline's 5th-place winner Logan Olsen in the semifinals, whereas Olsen had defeated Duvernay in the 2023 and 2022 Warrior.  (Olsen won the event in 2023 and placed second in 2022 to Roach.)  He defeated Division I state placers Trey Trainor of Brother Martin (3rd) and Braden Sellers of Fontainebleau (4th).  He won the Lakeshore Open, the Bulldog Brawl, the Trygg/Sara, the Jimmy Vidrine Division III, placed third at the Trey Culotta and fourth at the Louisiana Classic.

Shaw's Blake Andre did not lose to any slouches.  Oubre, Brother Martin's Matthew Graffagnini, Trainor, Trey Culotta winner Foster Peterson of St. Thomas More and Division II placer Colin Romero.  He placed second at the Jacob McMillan and third at the Trygg/Sara.  Just his luck though, he lost his first match of the season in 5:54 on November 6th, 2023, and his last match on February 3rd, 2024 in 4:34 to Duvernay.  The win gave Duvernay his third state championship, joining Alex Martin (2012-14) as the only Cavaliers to win three state championships.

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126 Pounds

I am not clear on why Hannan senior Colin Dalton was the #1 seed and Shaw's Giovanni Malta was #2.  Malta won the Billy Duplessis and placed second at the Trygg/Sara. He did not place at the Spartan Invitational, the Jacob McMillan or the Louisiana Classic.  Dalton placed third at the Rumble on the River, the Lakeshore Open and the Bulldog Brawl.  He was the runner-up at the St. Tammany Parish Championships.  He won the Mandeville Open and the Jimmy Vidrine Division III.  Each wrestler had 10 losses and close to 30 wins.  Dalton, however, competed in and placed in several more tournaments than did Malta.  Winning the Jimmy Vidrine also must have been a significant factor, as well. 

Whatever their reasons, Dalton and Malta ended up in the finals, but it as Malta taking home the bracket via a 6-2 win.

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132 Pounds

In the 2023 LHSAA State Wrestling Championships Shaw junior Carson Dalton was seeded 15th.  Three kids did not make weight, so Dalton was really seeded 12th of 13.  Either way, Dalton would have been listed "NS," or "Not Seeded."  Three matches later he was in the finals against DeQuincy senior Camden Gautreaux.  Gautreaux won the match 8-1 and earned the Division III OW for his efforts.  At this tournament Dalton was the #2 seed He won the Billy Duplessis and placed third at the Trygg/Sara.  Seeded first was St. Louis senior Grant Habetz.  Habetz placed second at the Jimmy Vidrine Division III whereas Dalton did not go to that event.  That might have been the deciding factor re seeding #1 and #2.  Whatever the reason, the seeders correctly picked the finalists and the wrestlers vindicated that it was a hard decision to make.  Dalton won the match 5-3 in a Sudden Victory period.

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138 Pounds

Evangel sophomore Joseph Gilreath was seeded first in 2023 as a freshman, but fell to the third-seed from St. Michael, Antonio Barraza, in the finals.  Gilreath suffered eight losses in the 2022-23 season.  This season the sophomore lost only one match, and that was to a Division I opponent.  He won the Riot on the Red, the Jimmy Vidrine Division III and the Ranch Invitational (Texas), and he placed second at the Arlington Invitational (Texas), the St. Mark's Lonestar (Texas) and the North Louisiana Regionals.  St. Louis senior Nolan McMichael was seeded second.  He won the Jesse James Southwest Shootout, placed second at the Rayne Invitational, third at the Jimmy Vidrine Division III and fifth in the Cougar Classic.  Over the season he lost to three Division III opponents, but two of those matches were at 144 lbs. while the other was at 150 lbs.  Gilreath opened a 4-2 lead after the first period and that would be all he needed.  Neither wrestler scored in the second period and Gilreath tacked on three more points in the third two minutes for a 7-3 win.

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144 Pounds

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150 Pounds

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157 Pounds

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165 Pounds

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175 Pounds

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190 Pounds

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215 Pounds

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285 Pounds

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