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Place	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
Podium
Name	Blain Cascio	Steven Driggers*	Austin Reason	Brennan Bennett	Christian Moore	Lawrence Hoffman
School	St. Paul	Parkway	Central	East Ascension	Chalmette	Jesuit
Seed	1	2	3	NS	5	4
Class	12	12	12	12	12	12
Final Record	14-2	9-2	15-5	27-16	7-2	17-7

Final records include Louisiana losses but all wins

*Steven Driggers is helped off of the finals match by his brother, 2019 Division II state champion and Outstanding Wrestler Dalton Driggers.

Weight Class Synopsis

Blain Cascio won the fourth individual title for the St. Paul Wolves when Parkway's Steven Driggers was forced to retire after injuring his knee at the beginning of the second period of a 2-2 match.  All anyone can complain about is perhaps missing an outstanding match.

The result should not be misread as anything less than Cascio earning the 182 lbs. Division I state championship.  His only two losses were to Shaw's undefeated Jude Monaco, and they were 3-1 and 4-3 TB-1 matches, the latter in the Louisiana Classic finals.  He was seeded first and pinned all four of his opponents to reach the finals match. 

Driggers was 6-1 with his only loss coming from Basile's Baylor Waggoner in the Jacob McMillan Memorial semifinals.  Driggers placed third and then only had one match between December 19th and the state championships.  He only faced three opponents to reach the finals and pinned only two.  Read nothing into that as his first match was a 17-0 technical fall in just under five minutes.  The Panther senior had surgery and is expected to fully recover. 

The surprise in this weight class was East Ascension senior Brennan Bennett.  Bennett was a Round-two victim of Cascio, but then scored three successive falls in the consolation rounds, including one over sixth-seeded Christian James of Airline.  His fourth match was harder - an 8-6 Sudden Victory win over Catholic's Zach Pellerin, who had defeated Bennett in a dual meet on January 9th via a fall in 2:10.  In the consolation semifinals he defeated fifth-seeded Christian Moore of Chalmette 5-0. 

On the other side of the consolation finals match was Central's third-seeded senior Austin Reason.  Reason fell to Driggers in the semifinals but locked-up third place with a CSF win in 1:27 over fourth-seed Lawrence Hoffman of Jesuit, followed by a 2:43 fall over Bennett.  Moore reached his seeding place with an 8-4 win over Hoffman.  Moore also defeated Hoffman 5-3 in the semifinals

Early Championship Rounds

R1: Zach Pellerin (CAT) pinned (7) Kade Morgan (HC) in 5:03

R1: Brandon Collins (TER) pinned Christian Dutch (COV) in 1:23

R2: (1) Blain Cascio (StP) pinned Brennan Bennett (EA) in 3:06

R2: (8) Jason O'Dell (ZAC) pinned Michael Foster (GK) in 5:29

R2: (5) Christian Moore (CHL) pinned Shannon Fray (LAF) in 1:43

PHOTO PHOTO

R2: Zach Pellerin (CAT) defeated Aiden Mouliet (BM) 8-3

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Quarterfinals

(1) Blain Cascio (StP) pinned (8) Jason O'Dell (ZAC) in 3:13

(5) Christian Moore (CHL) defeated (4) Lawrence Hoffman (JES) 5-3

(3) Austin Reason (CNT) pinned (6) Christian James (AIR) in 1:24

(2) Steven Driggers (PKY) pinned Zach Pellerin (CAT) in 0:34

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Semifinals

(1) Blain Cascio (StP) pinned (5) Christian Moore (CHL) in 2:51

(2) Steven Driggers (PKY) pinned (3) Austin Reason (CNT) in 3:12

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Championship Consolation Rounds

(3) Austin Reason (CNT) pinned Brennan Bennett (EA) in 2:43 to place 3rd

(5) Christian Moore (CHL) defeated (4) Lawrence Hoffman (JES) 8-4 to place 5th.  Moore defeated Hoffman 5-3 in the quarterfinals.

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Finals

Top-seeded Blain Cascio of St. Paul won by an injury default over #2 Steven Driggers of Parkway.  The match was tied 2-2 after the first period in which Driggers scored a takedown after just over a minute had elapsed and Cascio scored a reversal with 19 second remaining.  Driggers was on top and attempting to stop a Cascio switch when the injury occurred.  Parkway coach Emmet Beggs later told the editor that Driggers tore his meniscus and MCL in his right knee, underwent surgery at the beginning of March and that a full recovery is expected.

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