2017 Cadet/Junior National Championships

Most Dominant Champs Of #Fargo2017

Most Dominant Champs Of #Fargo2017

Wrestling in Fargo is extremely hard. But every single year there are wrestlers that show up and just completely demolish the field.

Jul 24, 2017 by Ryan Holmes
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It's an understatement to say that the Cadet and Junior National Championships is a tough tournament. However, every single year there are wrestlers who show up and completely demolish the field in Fargo, ND.

As we look through last week's results, the dominance of this year's crop of champions is apparent. While some guys and girls had to grind out every win, there were others that, for lack of a better term, made it look easy.

Let's start with the cadet women. The most obvious dominant wrestler here was Macey Kilty, who didn't just shut out everyone she faced to win the 127-pound title but also captured the Outstanding Wrestler honor.



Behind Kilty was Emily Shilson and Olivia Shore, the champions at 94 and 100, respectively. Shilson gave up just two points on the way to her title, and Shore gave up just one. Leila Castro, the 117-pound champ, was also in the mix. On the way to claiming her stop sign, Castro didn't make it out of the first period.

These girls were completely deadly throughout the tournament. On the junior level, there were just two female champions who had similarly dominant runs -- Gracie Figueroa and Emma Bruntil. Figueroa had all shutouts en route to the 122 title, capped off with a fall in the finals.

Bruntil, like Figueroa, held each one of her opponents scoreless as well. It wasn't until the finals that Jerzie Estrada scored the first and only points against Bruntil, but it didn't really matter because Bruntil finished things off with a fall to win the title.

On the men's side there were some guys who really got the job done in a big way. At 113 and 120, Noah Surtin and Ryan Sokol, respectively, didn't have a single match that went the distance. Josh Saunders and Carson Manville, who ended up meeting in the Greco finals, gave up a combined four total points at 126 and 132, respectively. Saunders gave up his lone point of the tournament in the quarterfinals where he went on to win 12-1.



Manville, frustratingly, had three points scored against him in the semifinals against Alexander Mosconi before going on to get the 16-3 win on his way to the finals, where he defeated Aidan Medora 11-0.

Then, there was the big man with the big throws -- Braxton Amos. He made his return to the mat in a big way and finished it in exactly the same fashion. Five-point throws became the norm for Amos, who is now a four-time Fargo champion.

It's no surprise that the men's junior brackets were absolutely stacked, so coming away with a dominant finish was next to impossible. However, three guys -- Sam Latona (106), Ben Freeman (138), and Jacob Warner (195) -- were the ones to get it done.



Latona teched his way through the bracket and finished things off with a 12-2 tech over Chris Trelli to become the first junior freestyle champ from Alabama. Freeman and Warner, who are headed to Michigan and Iowa, respectively, weren't phased by the opposition. They gave up some points early on in the tournament but couldn't be touched later on as they cruised to their titles.