Another UWW Junior World Championships is in the books as Team USA heads home from Slovakia with another impressive trove of hardware. For the women, one silver; for the Greco guys, a silver and a bronze; and for men's freestyle, two bronze, two silver and a big shiny yellow gold for Mekhi Lewis, champion of the 74 kilogram weight class. 

All three teams finished in the top 10, with men's freestyle securing the best finish as runner-up. This is all in addition to the 11 total medals hauled in by the cadet teams back in July. Suffice it to say things are going well for USA Wrestling's developmental pipeline. 

To get a better idea of how things are going, we took a look at the historical results of every junior world team in all three styles going back to 2005. That table can be found below.

When judged against last year's record-setting performance, 2018 can't help but feel like a letdown. But one also has to accept some statistical randomness when considering the performances, especially when random draws and repechage wrestlebacks are in place. 

To add more context to our medal count, we went back and applied the current team point scoring system to the historical placements. The current UWW tournament scoring rules award the following points per placement: 1st-25, 2nd-20, 3rd-15, 5th-10, 7th-8, 8th-6, 9th-4, 10th-2.

That table is below.

When taking into account all three styles, this table would suggest that 2018 was the second most successful Junior World Championship in American history. Men's freestyle also had it's second most successful tournament, as judged by total team points, 2017 again is the only time 2018 was topped. 

And now, because we just made it, let's check out a graph of the men's freestyle junior world championship point totals over the years, and throw in a trendline while we're at it. 

That is with Austin Gomez and Daniel Kerkvliet missing this year's event due to injury. And though the results are what they are, we don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that if that tournament was somehow wrestled again with the same participants, Gable Steveson would be the favorite to win gold, as he was when 2018's 125-kilogram bracket was revealed. 

It should be also noted that 2018 saw the introduction of two additional weight classes, bringing the total from eight to ten. But even when reducing the point total by 25%, 2018 was still the third most points scored by junior men's freestyle wrestlers in American history. 

So what's next for our impressive collection of junior world medalists? Let's see. 

Three-time junior world medalist Daton Fix will wrestle for the Oklahoma State Cowboys, at either 125 or 133, adding intrigue to either division. Brady Berge is expected to start at 149-pound for the defending national champion Penn State Nittany Lions. Mekhi Lewis has fired up Hokie Nation and will likely be at 165-pounds for Virginia Tech this upcoming season. Aaron Brooks will spend a year at the Olympic Regional Training Center before matriculating at Penn State. Zach Elam will be in Columbia, Missouri, probably redshirting this season before wrestling heavyweight for the Tigers. Andrew Berreysa will be in Ithaca, fitting into a monstrous Cornell lineup. Cohlton Schultz will finish high school in Ponderosa, Colorado and then travel south to Arizona State to continue his collegiate career. Finally, Macey Kilty can be seen wrestling in her second consecutive Who's Number 1, where she will take on Fargo champ Kennedy Blades. 

Seek shade American wrestling fans, the future is bright.