2018 Journeymen Fall Classic

All The Heat From Journeymen

All The Heat From Journeymen

20128 Journeymen Wrestling Recap

Oct 8, 2018 by Willie Saylor
All The Heat From Journeymen
Frank Popolizio is a man of the people. He always pushes hard for great fields. But this one - Sunday's Journeymen Fall Classic - was his best to date. 

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Frank Popolizio is a man of the people. He always pushes hard for great fields. But this one - Sunday's Journeymen Fall Classic - was his best to date. 

Over 70 wrestlers that were ranked or once-ranked competed, including several that American high school fans were intrigued about.

Matches will be uploaded as soon as possible (the boys are flying back from Who's #1). In the meantime, brackets can be found here.

Sure to have a great impact on the new batch of rankings (coming out Wednesday), we'll go weight by weight to account for all the relevant results of this pool format competition. 


99lbs

Team BIG's (Oklahoma) Christian Forbes dnp'd at 94lbs in Fargo but he won Journeymen with a win over Fargo 88lb. runner-up Jore Volk.

He won a close 2-1 battle with 8th grader Mac Church (PA), who is highly ranked on the JR High Big board.


106lbs 

This bracket was an absolute rankings disaster (which means it was incredibly fun!). Paul Garcia (NE) had a terrible Fargo, but beat runner-up Yusef Lillie (WA) in round two here. Stevo Poulin (NY) would beat Garcia in semi's and then M2's (David Taylor's Club) Levi Haines in the finals. Haines took out Sheldon Seymour (PA), who was 3rd in Fargo. He beat Garcia for 3rd here.

Fargo 94lb Champ Maxximus Martinez (CA) was 5th, Lillie was 7th, and nationally ranked Jack Maida (NJ) finished 9th! Incredible bracket. 


113lbs

How deep was this weight? Fargo GR Champ Paxton Creese (MN) beat nationally ranked Jacob Mann (MO) for 11th!

Blair's Ryan Miller (PA) beat two NJ studs (Nick Kayal, Nick Babin) before falling to a third in the finals where Dean Peterson took the title. Peterson had beaten NY's Jordan Titus in the semi's.


120lbs

The story here was incoming FR Nick Bouzakis (FL) beating PA State Champ, Senior Ryan Sullivan in the finals. He also beat Chris Kim (PA) and Cadet GR Trials Runner-Up, Aizayah Yacapin (WA). 


125lbs

Ryan Jack (CT) had himself a heck of a day. #9-Sean Pierson defaulted to him in Round 1 before he beat Pan Am Champ Lachlan McNeil (CAN) and then Zach Redding (NY) in the finals. 


130lbs

Ranked 13th, Patrick Noonan (PA) beat HM-Caden McCrary (GA), a Fargo GR AA, in the finals. 


135lbs

Everyone was anticipating a Hillegas (PA)-Sokol (MN) showdown. But that got derailed when Eddie Bolivar (IL) picked off Sokol, 8-2. Hillegas beat Bolivar 6-1.

In the other bracket, PA's Patrick Gould bounced #15-Justin Rivera (FL), before losing to Hillegas (11-6) in the finals. 


140lbs

Martin Wilkie (MT) was a match away from placing in Fargo Juniors. He made the finals here but fell 4-2 to Jonathan Miers (PA).

Nationally ranked Noah Castillo (FL) lost both pool round bouts (to Dylan Weaver (NJ) and Tyler Williams (PA)) and finished 9th. 

Wisconsin's Aiden Medora beat Indiana State Champ Alec Viduya for 5th. 


145lbs

#5-Lucas Revano (NJ), who beat the aforementioned Wilkie in Fargo, made the semi's before Fargo GR runner-up shocked him 4-3. Valencia won by the same score over #10-Devin Schwartzkopf (MO) in the finals. 

Revano took 4th also losing to Charlie Darracott of Georgia. 


152lbs

Thayne Lawrence (PA) beat Fargo AA Donald Cates (NC) setting up a showdown with California's Sonny Santiago, who edged Bennett Berge (MN), 3-2. Lawrence would win 5-1 and make the finals.

In the bottom half, Connor Brady beat #17-Drew Eller (GA) to give us the match we all wanted to see.

#3-Brady beat #4-Lawrence 5-4 in the best final of the day. 

Santiago was 3rd, beat John Martin Best. Berge fell to 8th.


160lbs

#14-Gavin Kane (GA) won the title despite losing in the pool round to Indiana's Graham Calhoun. Kane then beat two nationally ranked wrestlers - Tyler Stoltzfus (PA), and Noah Blake (CA). 

Fargo Greco AA, Aaron Gandara (AZ) took 3rd.


170lbs

Kai Bele (FL) knocked off Akron runner-up Josh Otto (WI) to set up one of the most anticipated match ups of the event. But turns out it was lopsided, as #11-Chris Foca (NJ) dominated #8-Bele, 14-1. 


182lbs

Along with Valencia, NY's Sammy Deprez was the big surprises of the tournament. Coming in unranked, Deprez beat NC State commit Christian Knop (AL) before winning the title over 2x Prep runner-up Jackson Turley (VA). 

Fargo Cadet FS Champ Luke Stout took 3rd. He beat Fargo AA Nathan Haas (CA) before losing to Turley in OT. 


195lbs

Coming into the event, a Cardenas (NJ)-Allred (IN) showdown was one of the matches we were most looking forward to. Both men took care of business to make it happen in the finals. #2-Cardenas would prevail 9-2 over #8-Allred.


225lbs 

From VA perennial power Christiansburg, Andy Smith took the title over NJ's Niccolo Colucci.


285lbs

Mateusz Kudra (MA) of Blackstone WC edged PA's Nathaniel Hoaglund to win top honors.