Jesse Vasquez celebrates after winning his fourth state championship (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)InterMat closed its books for the 2019-20 scholastic season last week with the publication of the final national high school weight class rankings. While the decisions are final on who is the No. 1 wrestler at each of the 14 weight classes, that does not mean there wasn't debate on who should have been crowned as the No. 1 wrestler.
Below are some of the weight classes where there was debate about who should have been ranked first, and/or a hypothetical matchup between the top two individuals would have been interesting to see happen.
106: No. 1 Andre Gonzales (Poway, Calif.) and No. 2 Marc-Anthony McGowan (Blair Academy, N.J.)
McGowan entered his freshman season already a high school state champion in Florida as an eighth-grader and a Cadet world champion in freestyle at 42 kilograms. He started the season ranked first nationally and validated that position when he won the Walsh Jesuit Ironman. However, the next week at the Beast of the East, McGowan was upset 1-0 in the semifinals by Tyler Vazquez (Delbarton, N.J.).
After earning titles in both freestyle and Greco-Roman at the Junior Nationals in Fargo during the summer, Gonzales was the preseason No. 2 to McGowan at 106 pounds. He then spent the first portion of the season up at 113 pounds. Upon dropping to 106 in mid-January, he ascended to the No. 1 position. Gonzales would go on to win a state title in a season where his only blemish came up at 113 to national No. 3 Joey Cruz (Clovis North, Calif.) in the finals of the Reno Tournament of Champions.
Due to California state association bylaws, there was no way an in-season match could have happened between the two wrestlers.
120: No. 1 Greg Diakomihalis (Hilton, N.Y.) and No. 2 Drake Ayala (Fort Dodge, Iowa)
This is a matchup that probably would have happened during the offseason except for Diakomihalis having off-season surgery that kept him out until early January. A clash between the two wrestlers would have most likely occurred between the Cadet World Team Trials, Junior Nationals in Fargo, Super 32 Challenge, and one of the preseason exhibitions.
Diakomihalis capped off a career in which he won five state titles, going undefeated in his ninth through 12th grade seasons. The junior Ayala recently committed to Iowa and won a second state title this past season. He is on an 86-match win streak going back to his state final loss to Cullan Schriever (Mason City, Iowa) as a freshman. This offseason Ayala was a Junior Nationals champion in folkstyle and freestyle, along with placing fourth in the Cadet World Team Trials.
145: No. 1 Lachlan McNeil (Wyoming Seminary, Pa.) and No. 2 Jesse Vasquez (Excelsior Charter, Calif.)
McNeil had a nine-month period in which he showed clear growth as a wrestler after placing second at National Preps in the 120-pound weight class. He showed clear talent, consistency, and dominance as he transitioned from a lightweight to a middleweight. McNeil placed third in Junior freestyle at 138 pounds, then won the Super 32 Challenge in that weight class; during the high school season he went undefeated with notable titles at the Walsh Ironman, Powerade, Eastern States Classic, and National Preps.
Vasquez caps his career as just the fourth wrestler to win four California state titles. However, his last 12 months have been short of appearances in major tournaments for both the in-season and offseason. The one "major" for him outside the state tournament series came at the Who's Number One event in October when he was pinned by Victor Voinovich (Brecksville, Ohio), a wrestler who McNeil beat in the Walsh Ironman final. Nonetheless, this is a match that "wrestling nation" would have liked to see happen in some platform, though it could not happen in-season due to California state association bylaws.
195: No. 1 Rocky Elam (Staley, Mo.) and No. 2 Gaige Garcia (Southern Columbia, Pa.)
This hypothetical No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown would represent an interesting foil between an "all wrestling all the time" type in Elam against a "multi-sport" type in Garcia. Elam, a Missouri signee, has spent significant time over the last year at the Olympic Training Center, while Garcia is going to Michigan as both a fullback in football and a wrestler.
Elam is 143-4 over the last three seasons, including an 83-1 mark on the way to winning state titles as a junior and senior; the lone loss in that stretch was at the 2018 Kansas City Stampede by a 2-1 decision to Devin Winston in the tiebreaker. He is a three-time Fargo freestyle All-American, placing fourth at 182 last summer at the Junior level after winning a Cadet title in 2018; Elam also was a Junior National folkstyle champion last spring.
Garcia is a four-time state placer, including undefeated state titles each of the last two years in this weight class; he is on a 98-match win streak going back to a 3-1 overtime loss in the state semifinal his sophomore year to Julian Gorring. On the football field, he set a Pennsylvania state record with 138 rushing touchdowns along with 159 overall touchdowns.
285: No. 1 Nash Hutmacher (Chamberlain, S.D.) and No. 2 Hunter Catka (Sun Valley, Pa.)
This is another football/wrestling foil scenario, though Hutmacher has a much more robust out-of-season wrestling track record than did Garcia. Hutmacher will be playing football in college at the University of Nebraska as a defensive lineman. While on the wrestling mat this season, Hutmacher went 42-0 with 40 first-period pins; the other two matches were a forfeit and a third-period pin. He finished his four state championship seasons with a 165-0 record, most recently losing a varsity match in the consolation semifinal round as an eighth-grader. Hutmacher is a two-time Junior National folkstyle finalist, winning last spring, and has finished top three in both styles at Fargo each of the previous three seasons (2018 and 2019 at the Junior level).
Virginia Tech signee Catka is 100-2 over the last three seasons in which he has won two state titles sandwiched around a third-place finish during an injury-disrupted junior season. This past season, Catka went 42-0 with 26 pins, including a title at the Beast of the East. This past offseason, Catka was champion at the Super 32 Challenge and qualified for the Cadet World Team in freestyle. Surprising for an upperweight, Catka never played football in high school.
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