14U Greco-Roman Team Shines - Sets Duals Record for Team Maryland
- Billy Buckheit
- Jun 20
- 5 min read
Last week in two locales across the nation, Maryland had two teams head into the waters of USA Wrestling’s National Duals. Greco-Roman was contested on Wednesday and Thursday (June 11th and 12th) with Freestyle coming over the weekend.
Not too far from home in Oaks, Pennsylvania, Maryland’s promising future was on display as the 14U Greco team reached the finals of Pool D and went onto place seventh in the country. On the other side of the map in Herriman, Utah, the 16U Greco team took their lumps, not winning a match in Pool B before going 1-3 in the Yellow Placement Pool to place 34th overall.
The 14U kids put their work in at the Philadelphia Expo Center where they began Pool D action with a 54-23 win over Louisiana in the quarterfinals. Indiana was handed a 41-35 loss in the semifinals, setting Maryland up for a showdown with Minnesota Blue to determine the pool winner and seeding in the Gold/Silver Pool. The locals barely came up short in that battle, losing 40-36. Minnesota Blue would go on to take third overall, beating Iowa in the placement match.
“I had really high expectations actually for this team,” coach Jason Kiessling said. “I knew just from the past years that Maryland has always done a fairly good job at the event with a significant amount of holes, like forfeits. I knew this year we had a full lineup, and I knew in many of the weights we were super strong. Some guys were a little bit less experienced. I knew that the guys that we had could make up for that.”
The Gold/Silver Pool was where the best of the best advanced and Team Maryland spilt their matches, going 2-2, but landed in the seventh-place match due to some quirky tie-breaker criteria with Wisconsin, whom they defeated, 41-34.
Maryland faced the team that would win it all in their Gold/Silver opener, Pennsylvania Blue, and fell 48-20. Next up was the win over Wisconsin before a final pool match with Iowa that resulted in a 45-33 loss.
“It was awesome,” Kiessling remarked. “Just making it to the Gold/Silver Pool was an accomplishment in itself. We got into that pool, and we beat Wisconsin, who was the team that ended up placing sixth. But we lost to Iowa, and Wisconsin beat Iowa, so this three-way kinda tie if you will, pushed us down into the seventh and eighth place match against Oklahoma Red. Even though we beat the sixth-place team we placed lower."
“There are some things in the Iowa dual that could have gone differently. It was a super close dual. If we beat them, we’re going for third and fourth. That’s how close it was for us to be third or fourth. When we got to that Oklahoma dual, it was going back and forth. It was a super awesome environment. There was a ton of people crowding the mat and watching around the mat. It was pretty neat. Oklahoma was chanting their guys’ names, and Maryland would be chanting our guys’ names.”
While a few of their earlier meetings were close, none could match the drama of this seventh-place match that came down to the final bout, and then criteria were needed to decide the victor.
Team Maryland got off to a good start, winning six of the first seven matches to build a 23-7 advantage. Five of them discarded their foes with technical falls – Isaac Hierro (80 pounds), Logan Smith (88), Kyle Link (92), Edward Encarnacion III (96), and Charles Cooper (105). Esaias Perez added a 4-1 decision over Max Burd at 100 pounds.
In dual meet scoring for the Olympic Styles, if a wrestler scores a point during the match and loses, his team receives one point. The only exceptions to that are if you lose by fall or disqualification. That is why despite winning only one match during that stretch, Oklahoma Red had seven team points (in three of their losses, their wrestler put points on the board).
OK Red put together a win streak of their own following that onslaught and ended the four-match run holding a one-point edge, 24-23. Three 9-0 techs and a pin kept Maryland from adding any points to their tally. Avery Rios (110 pounds), Josiah Williby (115), and Dawson Beckley (120) registered the tech falls and Ryatt Rodden secured the fall at 126 pounds over Alvin Pinkney.
Maryland was given the lead back when OK Red forfeited to Jake Jones at 132 pounds. Terriel Cooke complimented that with an 8-0 tech of Ethan Pick at 140 to put his squad up by eight, 32-24.
OK Red put an immediate end to Maryland’s good vibes by taking the next three matches and with it the lead at 38-33. Two pins and a tech did the damage as Garrett Lynn (155) and Ryker Berndt (225) earned the falls and Jaydan Gates picked up the tech at 175 pounds.
With one final bout remaining, the little guys took center stage as the dual would end at the 75-pound weight class where Maryland’s Korbin Kiessling would face off with a national rival in Channing Bowman. Kiessling had one concern, get five for his team and he didn’t make them wait long for it as he stuck Bowman at the 1:50 mark to bring the team count to 38 all. Maryland won nine matches to OK Red’s eight and that was the deciding factor that gave them the 39-38 victory.
“It came down to the last match,” Kiessling reflected. “Our heavyweight got pinned, which put us down by five. And 75 was the last weight class. We had to get a pin to at least tie it, then figure out who had criteria. At the time we had no idea who had criteria, we just knew we had to pin to tie the dual. Korbin (my son) went out and he had a tough kid, Channing Bowman. They’ve wrestled before. Channing’s an accomplished national wrestler. He’s placed in a lot of high-level events such as Tulsa and all those types of things. Korbin had to pin him, and he went out and was able to get the job done and the pinned the guy and we ended up winning on criteria, which was most head-to-head wins.”
Kiessling led his team to victory as he posted a 6-0 record at 75 and 80 pounds. Only two of Kiessling’s matches went the distance, with two others ending by tech and two by fall. Two others went unscathed in limited action with 4-0 records, Logan Brickley (88) and Encarnacion (92 and 96 pounds). Luke Briggs was 2-0 at 75 pounds. Of them, Kiessling was the only one to earn a spot on the All-Tournament Team as you needed to wrestle in at least five matches to be eligible.
Cooke (132/140) and Perez (96/100) went 6-1. Cooper (105/110) and Link were 4-1. Justin Wildy Jr. put up a 3-1 record at 115 pounds. Logan Smith posted a 2-1 tally. Hierro (80/84) was 5-2. Braidyn Taby (105/110) was 4-3. Amir Cartwright at 175 pounds was 3-3.
The 16U boys tasted little team success at Zions Bank Real Academy but had a number of individual grapplers shine. Team Maryland won its next to last match in the Yellow Placement Pool over Montana, 54-12. An eighth-place finish in Pool B relegated them to the Yellow Pool. Maryland was 0-3 in Pool B and 1-3 in the Yellow Rounds.
Parkdale’s Lazaro Torralba was the only Marylander to go undefeated with a 7-0 record. The impressive part of his performance though, is that six of the wins were by technical fall (the other on disqualification), with four of them coming in less than a minute (:50, :18, :44, and :52). The perfect performance led to Torralba being named to the All-Tournament Team.
Two Archbishop Spalding guys posted 5-2 records, Charlie Mutschler (113) and Quentin Bailey (132). Calvert Hall’s Izaac Robertucci joined them in the 5-2 club. Mt. St. Joseph’s Connor Allison was 4-3 at 144 pounds. Conner Armwood went 2-2 at 120 pounds.
Full Brackets and Results can be found here:
14U
16U
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