Top Stars And Storylines In State Tournaments This Week On Trackwrestling

Top Stars And Storylines In State Tournaments This Week On Trackwrestling

This week's state tournament menu is loaded with 16 championships in nine states and two dozen ranked competitors streamed on Trackwrestling.

Feb 18, 2021 by Andy Hamilton
Top Stars And Storylines In State Tournaments This Week On Trackwrestling

The third week of February is typically a smorgasbord of high-level high school wrestling state championships. Even in a COVID-scrambled season, this week’s menu is still loaded with 16 championship events in nine states and two dozen nationally-ranked competitors expected to take the mat in tournaments streamed on Trackwrestling. 

Here’s a look at some of the top stars and storylines to follow:

— Iowa recruit Drake Ayala began the season ranked No. 1 nationally at 126 pounds and might have gone wire-to-wire at the top spot, except the two-time state champion sought out bigger challenges during his senior year. 

Ayala moved up to 132 early in the season and posted a major decision win against three-time Iowa state champ Matthew Lewis. He went up again in January for a chance to take on returning state champ and fellow Sebolt Wrestling Academy training partner Ryder Block of Waverly-Shell Rock. Block scored a 9-7 victory that vaulted him into the national rankings, ended Ayala’s string of 113 consecutive victories and also solidified the Fort Dodge senior’s postseason plans. 

“I would never feel good about myself going to 126 and winning, knowing I could never get that match back,” Ayala told IAWrestle. “That’s not the person I am. I would much rather get second at 132 than first at 126.” 

Block went 44-0 last season as a freshman and enters this year’s state meet with a 23-0 record. Ayala is looming on the opposite side of the bracket with a 25-1 mark. 

“If it happens, it happens,” Block told the Waterloo Courier. “We are friends. We train together at Sebolt Wrestling. We are competitors. I understand it. He is one of the best wrestlers in the state. I understand he gets beat and he wants to come after me. It makes sense to me.

“We will see if it happens again. I’m not going to hold anything back, and neither will he. I respect it.” 

— Ayala and Block are two of the 14 nationally-ranked competitors in this year’s Iowa state tournament. Two other weight classes in Class 3A could feature clashes between a pair of top 20 contestants. 

Waverly-Shell Rock’s Aiden Riggins cracked the top 20 earlier in the season after posting a 9-8 win against Iowa recruit Caleb Rathjen of Ankeny. Rathjen enters this year’s tournament ranked 12th, while Riggins is 20th. 

Bettendorf heavyweight Griffin Liddle, an Iowa football recruit, comes in ranked 15th at heavyweight, four notches ahead of Ames’ Gabe Greenlee. 

— Nebraska altered its tournament for 2021, switching to a four-day format that began Wednesday. 

Returning state champs Keith Smith of Lincoln East and Caleb Coyle of Millard South each posted a pair of wins Wednesday to set up a semifinal showdown. Coyle, an Oregon State recruit, won the first two meetings this season, registering a 2-1 tiebreaker victory and a 3-2 win.

— Coyle’s teammate, Conor Knopick, provided us with one of the most dramatic victories of last year’s state tournament series when he knocked off Oklahoma State-bound Jakason Burks in a captivating 132-pound championship match. Knopick is back down at 126 this season, which puts him in a bracket with fellow state champ Blake Cushing of Grand Island. Knopick won their first meeting this season 3-2. 

— Alabama high school wrestling has been on the uptick in recent years. Sam Latona became the state’s first Fargo champion before taking his talents to Virginia Tech, where he’s currently ranked third in the country at 125 pounds. Cory Land has taken the baton from Latona and given Alabama another top lightweight to watch. 

Land established himself as an elite competitor two years ago with his performance in Akron, where he reached the Cadet World Team Trials finals in both styles and won the Greco-Roman title. He placed third last fall at the Super 32 and enters this week’s state tournament in search of his fourth state title. 

Land won his first Alabama state championship as an eighth grader in 2018 when he 53-2. He’s 142-0 in the three seasons since, including a 39-0 mark this season. The fourth-ranked 126-pounder has had just one match go the distance this season — an 8-4 victory at 132 against fellow state champion Jacob Dease. 

— Another Cadet World teamer will go for his third state title this week in Indiana. Second-ranked 138-pounder Jesse Mendez mowed through last year’s state tournament with four bonus-point victories, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Mendez got tossed to his back in the state finals before registering a 25-13 win against Matthew Koontz. 

Mendez is a prohibitive favorite once again. He enters this year’s tournament with a 30-0 record as a junior and a 112-1 career mark. 

— Sage Mortimer made USA Wrestling history in 2018 when she became the first girl to earn Junior Greco-Roman All-American honors in Fargo. She hoped to make more history on the Utah prep level, aiming to become the first girl to win a state title in a bracket filled with boys. 

Utah, however, sanctioned girls wrestling and will stage its first girls state tournament this week. 

On one hand, Mortimer is excited about the growth of girls wrestling in Utah. On the other, she’s disappointed she won’t have an opportunity to wrestle against boys

“It feels really unfair to me personally that they aren’t letting me wrestle boys because — and I’m not trying to be cocky when I say this — I was one of the first girl wrestlers to wrestle in Utah,” Mortimer told The Salt Lake Tribune, “and I feel like that sparked something and I feel like that’s a huge reason why there’s as many girls as there are today.”


NATIONALLY-RANKED WRESTLERS COMPETING FROM TRACKWRESTLING'S HIGH SCHOOL RANKINGS THIS WEEK IN STATE TOURNAMENTS STREAMED ON TRACKWRESTLING

Alabama 

126 — No. 4 Cory Land (Moody) 

Indiana 

138 — No. 2 Jesse Mendez (Crown Point) 

Iowa 

106 — No. 11 Carter Freeman (Waukee)

113 — No. 6 Nathanael Jesuroga (Southeast Polk)

132 — No. 6 Drake Ayala (Fort Dodge)

132 — No. 12 Ryder Block (Waverly-Shell Rock) 

132 — No. 15 Aidan Noonan (Cascade) 

138 — No. 10 Hunter Garvin (Iowa City West) 

152 — No. 13 Caleb Rathjen (Ankeny) 

152 — No. 20 Aiden Riggins (Waverly-Shell Rock) 

160 — No. 19 Hayden Taylor (Solon) 

182 — No. 20 Adam Ahrendsen (Union) 

195 — No. 17 Wyatt Voelker (West Delaware)

195 — No. 20 Ben Kueter (Iowa City High) 

285 — No. 15 Griffin Liddle (Bettendorf) 

285 — No. 19 Gabe Greenlee (Ames) 

 

Nebraska 

113 — No. 20 Kael Lauridsen (Bennington) 

126 — No. 5 Conor Knopick (Millard South) 

132 — No. 13 Garrett Grice (Bellevue East)

152 — No. 17 Nick Hamilton (Papillion-LaVista) 

160 — No. 9 Antrell Taylor (Millard South) 

170 — No. 17 Evan Canoyer (Waverly)
 

Wisconsin (Team) 

132 — No. 16 Jager Eisch (Kaukauna) 

220 — No. 20 Koy Hopke (Amery)