High school state tournament season has become a lot of fun for me in recent years now that you can watch a bunch of different states finals with a Flo subscription. Broadcast quality is low (though better in some states than others) and frustrating, but the availability is awesome.
Two states I keep an eye on went this weekend. Indiana's finals were Saturday and there were a bunch of incredible stories, from a 157 lb freshman becoming the first freshman in the history of the tournament to win a weight class heavier than 134 lbs to Brownsburg winning 7 of 14 individual titles, which is insane in a single-class tournament, to one of their wrestlers becoming a 4x champ and another winning his third with a year to go.
But the
biggest story had to be Kameron Hazelett - a slightly pudgy, underweight freshman who won the heavyweight division. To win, he had to beat a 2x Tennessee state champ who moved back home for his senior year and who gave Hazelett his only loss earlier in the season. They wrestled in the sectional, regional, semi-state and state finals and Hazelett won all four. A freshman winning heavyweight in a single-class tournament is nuts. Beating the same, high quality opponent four weeks in a row is nuts. I'm looking forward to seeing if this kid can reach the potential he's showing, but like a lot of great HWT high school wrestlers, he seems to have his eye on football.
In North Carolina, our tournament has been marred by bad officiating, which seems to be a trend the last few years. Since I yeeted my Twitter account, it's harder to share video here. There was a horrible pin called in one of the semifinals. And in one of the championships a wrestler with a history of questionable injury time usage, called for it as she was about to be pinned and the refs let her do it to reset. She won. That's another ongoing problem in NC.
Ohio had their districts this week and to everyone's surprise, Marcus Blaze, the No. 1 ranked pound for pound senior - a 3x state champ and U17 world champ who has already beaten multiple former NCAA champions -
entered the 150 lb weight class after wrestling 138 all season. Perrysburg's 157 pounder had a late season-ending injury, so they bumped their 150 up and Blaze jumped in. He easily won districts, but wrestling up two weights is nothing to sneeze at
In NJ, a massive brawl broke out in the stands,
apparently instigated by the father of Anthony Knox Jr., the nationally ranked No. 1 126 lber and 3x NJ champ. Dad was taken out in cuffs and the NJSIAA is reviewing video of the incident and it seems to be an open question whether the son got involved, which would lead to his DQ from the rest of the tournament.
