National top 25 high school wrestling rankings for every weight class (12/28/2023)

Most of the Christmas Holiday Wrestling Tournaments kick off on Thursday or Friday this week, but a few got underway on Wednesday including the Sam Cali Tournament in New Jersey, where Blair Academy has sent a handful of their studs, but otherwise the Bucs are running their backups out this week. The tournament is still tough sledding in most weights with a deep New Jersey field and teams from outside the Garden State.

The Prep Slam hosted by Holy Innocents in Georgia is the big event that begins on Thursday. The entries for this venture are comprised of the top prep schools in the south and other regions.

Friday brings us to the prestigious PowerAde Tournament hosted by Canon-McMillan High School in Pennsylvania. PowerAde is considered one of the five toughest regular season tournaments in the nation and features a slate of ranked competitors and teams from all over the country.

Nine teams ranked in the nation by Mat Scouts will be there including No. 1 Wyoming Seminary (Pennsylvania), No. 5 St. Edward (Ohio), No. 7 St. Joseph Regional (New Jersey), No. 8 Malvern Prep (Pennsylvania), No. 9 Delbarton (New Jersey), No. 13 Lake Highland Prep (Florida), No. 14 Bishop McCort (Pennsylvania), No. 33 Bergen Catholic (New Jersey), and No. 34 Cleveland (Tennessee).

Wyoming Seminary captured last week’s Hall of Fame Duals championship despite being missing Vince Bouzakis and Joe Sealey. The title bout versus Oklahoma’s Edmond North would likely not have ended in a tie that was decided on criteria (32-31) if those wrestlers were in the fold. The Knights were declared victors on the most matches won criteria with eight.

Wyoming Seminary won the first five matches to go up 19-0. Edmond North equaled that win streak and did so with three pins to take a 25-19 lead. The Knights won the final three contested bouts before forfeiting 285. Seminary also listed Delbarton, 39-21, Bixby (Oklahoma) 50-21, and Massillon Perry (Ohio) 49-15 amongst their notable wins.

The Knight’s No. 18 Dominic Federici shocked No. 1 Louis Cerchio (Delbarton), 6-4 in overtime, for the biggest win tallied by Seminary.

Edmond North and Poway, California had their battle for the top public-school team in the country end in a 24-24 tie that was also decided on criteria. Both of these squads had most of their firepower on hand, so this shows how truly even the two teams are with Edmond North being declared the winner on Criteria I: most first points scored in the dual.

Poway’s lightweights led their charge, while North’s upper weights got them back in the match. Poway defeated Delbarton, 42-23, for third place.

Poway’s Arseni Kikiniou edged North’s Jake Goodin, 5-4, at 106 in a mild upset that helped push the Oklahoma squad to the brink. Two other Californians, who represent Buchanan, registered noteworthy wins. At 157, No. 6 Leo Contino defeated Edmond North’s Kody Routledge (No. 4 at 150), 5-1.

The star of the tournament also wore a Buchanan singlet as No. 24 Joseph Toscano raced up the 144lb rankings by taking out No. 14 Beau Hickman (Tuttle, Oklahoma), North’s No. 4 Layton Schneider, and Bixby’s Jace Roller (No. 6 at 138).

Buchanan’s Ashton Besmer (126) was involved in an unexpected win for himself with a victory over Isaiah Jones (Bixby, No. 21 at 120), and an upset loss to Massillon Perry’s Mason Rohr.

Lake Highland Prep’s Omer Barak (175) also experienced the up and down nature of the sport by winning an overtime match with Bixby’s Clay Giddens-Buttram (No. 9 at 165) and falling to the unranked Kalob Ybarra (Pomona, Colorado). Prep’s No. 15 Jayce Paridon blanked Bixby’s Gage Walker (No. 7 at 126), 3-0, at 132lbs.

Delbarton had three wrestlers author signature wins, none bigger than No. 21 Dan Jones shocking No. 5 Ethan Rivera (Lake Highland Prep), 3-2, in their 120lb bout. No. 8 Cameron Sontz getting by No. 2 Shamus Regan (Wyoming Seminary), 3-1 in overtime, at 106 was a close second to Jones’ feat. Unranked Ryan DeGeorge (126) sent to honorable mention wrestlers home shaking their heads as he pinned Charlie DeSena (Lake Highland Prep) in 18 seconds and sneaked by Poway’s Billy Townson, 8-7.

Another unranked grappler made noise at 138 with Massillon Perry’s Charles Curtis registering two huge wins, the first in overtime versus Seminary’s Matthew Botello (No. 7 at 132), 7-5, and No. 23 Gavin Bauder (Buchanan) fell to Curtis, 10-4.

SBLive Sports National High School Wrestling Rankings (12/28/2023)