The high school wrestling season started off with one of the biggest tournaments of the year — Ironman.

Out of Pennsylvania, Faith Christian Academy flexed its collective muscles against some of the best in the country. With a few traditional powerhouses like Wyoming Seminary and Blair Academy down a bit due to graduation and injuries, it was Faith Christian, Bishop McCort and Lake Highland Prep that stepped up and finished 1-2-3. Faith Christian scored 213 points to beat Bishop McCort by 35.5 points. 

Unsurprisingly, Faith Christian paced the field with three individual champs — #1 Fred Bachmann at 113 pounds, #5 Joe Bachmann at 120, and #4 Adam Waters at 190. Fred Bachmann was the only freshman in the field to win a title, while Joe Bachmann was one of just two sophomores to win it (also #1 Caleb Noble of Warren Township at 106). Bishop McCort had two champs in #2 Jax Forrest (132) and #1 Bo Bassett (144).

Wyoming Seminary also had a pair of champions with #5 Nathan Desmond winning at 126 and #1 Jude Correa winning at 215 and finished fourth as a team. It was Lake Highland Prep that put together an impressive team performance, placing third without a single champion or finalist.  The Highlanders had eight placers with three wrestling back for third.

In addition to that, a number of individual standouts continued their winning ways and added to their trophy haul with five wrestlers becoming multi-time Ironman winners (more on that below). 

As always, this year’s Ironman had plenty of upsets and guys out-wrestling their seeds. We’ll highlight some of the most notable ones below as well.

Top Seeds Clean House

Great job to whoever or whatever seeded this tournament because not a single 1-seed took a loss. It does help when you have a collection of wrestlers like we’re seeing come through right now that seem to be especially elite – potentially transcendent talents such as Marcus Blaze, Bo Bassett, LaDarion Lockett and Jax Forrest.

And that’s just the guys who went to Ironman — there were a number of wrestlers who were not there that fit right in as potentially transcendent such as PJ Duke and Anthony Knox.

Bassett leads the bunch with three Ironman titles and will go for his fourth next year, while Blaze, Lockett, Correa and Joe Bachmann all won their second titles this past weekend. Like Bassett, both Joe and Fred Bachmann are also on pace right now to win four Ironman titles. 

All Bonus, All The Time

It’s an incredible feat, but four wrestlers were able to bonus their way through Ironman this year. 

Bassett was as dominant as it gets as he teched his way through the entire tournament and was the only wrestler to win every match and not go the distance once. In six matches, he outscored his opponents 124-27 and was only on the mat for a combined 11 minutes, 24 seconds. His average match ended in just under two minutes. 

Also putting together dominant runs were #4 Adam Waters of Faith Christian, #5 Kody Routledge of Edmond North, and #6 Michael Mocco of Cardinal Gibbons. 

Wrestling at 190 pounds, Waters notched two pins, two techs and a major decision – winning via fall in the final. At 157, the Oklahoma State commit Routledge notched two pins and three majors. Mocco won his heavyweight crown with a pin, two techs and a major. 

Needless to say, these four wrestlers deserve to be recognized for their dominance in such a tough field.

Ironman Overachievers

There were a number of impressive performances by guys who maybe weren’t seeded high, so let’s give those wrestlers their due.

— At 106 pounds, a number of guys out-performed their seed, including 11th-seeded Traevor Ducking of Brownsburg who came in unranked. Apparently, nobody told Ducking that because he made it all the way to the semifinal round where he lost a 1-0 decision to #2 seed Justin Farnsworth of Malvern Prep. Ducking ended up placing sixth. 

— At 113, there were two major standouts in this category —  #12 seed Case Bell of Brownsburg and unseeded Cole Welte of Skutt Catholic. Bell took out the #4 seed by major before falling to top-seeded Fred Bachmann 4-3 in the semifinal round. After a win over the #7 seed in the consolation semis, Bell beat Welte 4-0. Welte took a much different path to the third-place match. He lost his first-round match to Fred Bachmann 9-4 before winning six straight matches on the backside and falling to Bell to finish fourth.

At 120 pounds, the guy here has to be #7 seed Revin Dickman of Brownsburg who took out second seed Dom Munaretto, a two-time U17 World Champion, 7-1 in the quarters. Dickman went on to fall to Joe Bachmann 6-3 in sudden victory in the final. 

— Wrestling at 126 pounds, Malvern Prep’s #9 seed Matt O’Neill lost only one match on the way to a third-place finish. That one loss came in the quarters against eventual champion Desmond 5-2. In the third-place match, O’Neill beat #7 (at 120) Gauge Botero 6-0.

— Another unseeded guy made the podium here at 132 pounds with Malvern Prep’s Tyler Conroy taking a quarterfinal loss to #2 Forrest and a consolation loss to #6 Matthew Botello of Wyoming Seminary on the way to his fifth-place finish. Conroy took out the 8, 9, 13 seeds on the way to the podium.

— A sophomore for Marian Central Catholic, 11th-seeded Jimmy Mastny put together an impressive run. After a pair of techs, Mastny fell to #3 seed De’Aleap Veazy of Ponderosa in the quarters. He went on to win four matches on the back side, including an 8-1 decision over 5-seed Robert Kucharczk of Lake Highland Prep in the 3rd-place match. Kucharczk beat Veazy in the consolation semi.

— Lastly, at heavyweight, 12th seed Lukas Zalota of Malvern Prep took a loss to #5 seed Alex Taylor before winning five matches in a row on the backside to place fourth.

Bettendorf Reigns At Dan Gable Donnybrook

Ironman wasn’t the only tournament this past weekend. The Dan Gable Donnybrook Invitational was held at the Xtream Arena in Coralville, Iowa.

For the team title, Bettendorf (Iowa) held off Staley to finish first. Bettendorf scored 366.5 points, while Staley (Missouri) scored 352. Don Bosco (Iowa) finished third with 332.5 points.

Bettendorf had four individual champs in Jake Knight (120), Timothy Koester (132), Lincoln Jipp (175) and Brayden Koester (190). Staley had two champions with Zayne Reynolds (126) and David Gleason (157) getting it done. 

For Don Bosco, things got interesting at 113 pounds with brothers Hayden and Hendrix Schwab both making it to the final. Hayden is ranked #9 in the country at 113 pounds, while Hendrix is a freshman. They both settled for a no contest in the final as they shared the title. Also winning for Don Bosco were Dawson Youngblut (138) and Kyler Knaack (165). 

Southeast Polk Rolls To Gardner-Edgerton Title

Taking place in Gardner, Kan., the Gardner-Edgerton Invitational saw some of the best Midwest teams in attendance.

Southeast Polk (Iowa) won the team title with 317 points, while Allen (Texas) High School finished second with 221. St. Pius X (Missouri) finished third with 178 points. 

Southeast Polk had an incredible nine finalists but just two champions — Carter Pearson at 132 and #9 Cooper Martinson at heavyweight. Allen had four individual champions — Izayiah Chavez (120), Kelby Bernard (126), Jair Jackson (138) and Jonathan Meyers (165). St. Pius X had one individual champ with Jackson Rotterman at 215 pounds.