Maryland 14U Freestyle Duals Team -- Top 10 in U.S.A.
- Billy Buckheit
- Jun 20
- 6 min read
Much like what we saw with the 14U and 16U squads in Greco Roman, a similar pattern emerged in the Freestyle competition with the 14U team landing in 10th overall in the country and the 16U group placing 29th.
The Freestyle tournaments were run on Friday and Saturday (June 13th and 14th) in Oaks, Pennsylvania for 14U and Herriman, Utah for the 16U slate. The 14U Team was given an unfavorable draw, being placed in Pool D alongside three other teams that reached the Gold/Silver Placement Bracket in Greco.
Nonetheless, they held their own placing fourth with a 4-2 record. Their bracket was packed and Team Maryland started off in the Round of 16 with a 42-37 win over Ohio Scarlet. This set up another encounter with a Wisconsin squad they defeated in Greco Roman. The quarterfinal meeting saw Wisconsin avenge their earlier loss with a 43-34 victory to force Maryland into the consolation rounds.
Maryland reeled off two consecutive wins to reach the third-place match of Pool D. Tennessee was disposed of with a 47-28 count. A consolation semifinal meeting with Kansas ended with a 53-26 score in favor of the locals. California put an end to their winning streak with a 48-27 tally.
California advanced to the Gold/Silver Bracket after beating Minnesota Blue, 40-32, in a true second place match. Minnesota Blue would join Maryland in the Bronze/Copper Placement Bracket and beat them in the ninth/tenth place match, 41-40, which also doubled as the Bronze/Copper Championship match.
To get there, Maryland took three straight with none of the wins being particularly close. In the first round, Iowa Blue fell 50-31. The second match saw Maryland win 51-26 over Connecticut and the third match that paved their way to the finals resulted in a 46-28 win over Texas.
“The Freestyle run was good,” said coach Jason Kiessling. “We won our first dual, lost to Wisconsin in our first pool. If I’m being completely honest, the pool that we initially were drawn into for Freestyle was kind of, I don’t like making excuses, but there was four Gold Pool teams from Greco in that pool for Freestyle. You had Minnesota Blue, Wisconsin, ourselves, and California all in the same initial pool. So, I do think that was kind of mismanaged on the tournament side and that’s due to the PIN Rating System, which is not fully accurate at the moment.
“We ended up placing fourth because we lost to Wisconsin in a very close dual and then we lost again to California later on in that pool. We had to wrestle seven duals on Friday and that was a grind. The kids wrestled really, really well. We were in the Copper/Bronze Pool after the initial pool. We wrestled all the way back to the championship of that pool on Saturday, which we lost to 41-40 to Minnesota Blue.”
The Minnesota Blue dual began with Maryland dropping the first match at 84 pounds on a tech to Jett Foster of Chase Warm for a 4-1 deficit that would be short-lived as Maryland rolled off five wins in a row to take a commanding 21-6 lead.
Three consecutive tech falls helped build that edge as Logan Brickley (88 pounds), Edward Encarnacion III (92), and Esaias Perez (96) collected the techs. Charles Cooper edged Rett Huerta, 9-8, at 100 pounds. Braidyn Taby picked up one of only two falls registered by Maryland in 2:59 at 105 pounds.
Pins would be why Minnesota Blue would win this dual as they put six in the book. After Taby’s fall, Minnesota Blue answered with three of their own to tie it up at 21-21. Clayton Birkholz (110 pounds), William Dircks (115), and Declan Dahl (120) were responsible for their opponents’ early endings.
Maryland would come right back with a three-match winning streak that gave them the edge again, 34-22. Alvin Pinkney won a 12-8 decision over Landon Rinke at 126 pounds then Terriel Cooke (132) and Jake Jones (140) were given forfeits.
Another string of three wins came again, this time for Minnesota Blue, as it was their turn to go out front, albeit by one point, 36-35. Elias Motta picked up a tech at 155 pounds that was followed by two more pins by Colton Bitker (175) and Wes Wolke (225).
Korbin Kiessling took the mat after the turn around to 75 pounds and dropped Maryland’s second pin of the dual on Kamden Gallus in 44 seconds. This gave Maryland a 40-36 advantage with one bout left. It didn’t take long for Minnesota Blue to ruin Maryland’s potential happy ending as Cameron Rodgers decked Luke Briggs in 1:32 at 80 pounds to seal the 41-40 win.
“That one was kind of tough,” Kiessling elaborated. “Our 80/84 pounder, Isaac Hierro, he hurt himself in the first dual of the day on Saturday. He hurt his knee, so we were unable to use him in our last dual, which is just the nature of the beast. When you wrestle that many matches guys are just going to get a little banged up. Anyway, we asked some people to bump up and shift up in the lineup.
“We went up by four after Korbin’s match then we had to not get pinned in our last match, and unfortunately, they had a super stud in their last match, and he was able to get the fall and we lost by a point. It’s a total team effort. It’s not on any one person. Things could have gone differently in all the matches. I was just really proud of the way the kids competed. They came together as a team.
“Throughout the whole Freestyle and Greco tournament, we were literally bumping guys around to different weight classes. Shifting the lineup. Putting in guys because we brought multiple guys in some weights. We were shifting our lineup just to try to get everybody matches, but also still compete and win the duals. I thought we did a pretty nice job of that, and the kids wrestled extremely well, and I was just happy for them.”
All three of Maryland’s 14U kids who went undefeated made the All-Tournament team as five wins was the threshold for inclusion, Kiessling (75/80 pounds) was 9-0. Going 5-0 were Kyle Link (92) and Logan Smith (88). Multiple kids suffered just one loss with Perez (96/100) putting up a 9-1 tally and Cooke (132/140), 8-1, leading the way. Hierro was 7-1, between 80 and 84 pounds. Encarnacion placed a 6-1 record on his resume at 92 and 96 pounds. Brody Clemons was 3-1 at 126 pounds and Miles Haynes went 2-1 at 100.
Taby competed in all ten duals and came out with an 8-2 record bouncing between 105 and 110 pounds. Briggs (75/80) and Cooper (100/105) were 5-2. Pinkney (126) came out with a 4-2 count. Brickley was 3-2 as he split time with Logan Smith at 88 pounds.
Ayden Leader was 5-5 at 120 pounds. John Snyder was also at .500 going 3-3 at 155 and 175 pounds. Also, at 155 and 175, Amir Cartwright went 3-4 and Warm was 2-3 at 80 and 84 pounds.
“I felt we could place and medal,” offered Kiesling. “I was hoping to do it in both. It just so happened in Freestyle we came up a little bit short. I think moving forward, I still have very high expectations for the 14U dual team. I think next year’s team could even be better than this year’s team. And that’s not taking anything away from this year’s team. We were very good. But being involved in it and having a kid myself, in this age group, I know what we got coming back. We had a young team this year. We had a lot of 2012 kids on the team this year that will be back next year. Then we have some 2013s that will be coming in that I know are very good as well, so I’m excited for next year’s team. And I was excited for this year’s team too.”
The 16U Boys placed seventh in Pool A to qualify for the Green/Yellow Placement Bracket. In Pool A’s seventh-place match, Maryland edged Montana, 33-32. They lost in the consolation quarters to Colorado 60-19 and fell into the consolation bracket after a 69-12 quarterfinal loss to Minnesota Blue.
Maryland was 2-2 in the Green/Yellow Pool, placing fifth in the pool with a 35-32 win over Arizona Red. They opened the pool with a 40-35 loss to Nebraska, then came back to beat Louisiana 34-27 in their second match, before getting trounced by Virginia, 70-7, before slotting into the fifth-place match.
Individually, Marylanders didn’t have as much success in Freestyle as they did in Greco with none going unscathed to earn All-Tournament team slots. Archbishop Spalding’s Isaac Cicchetti (126) put forth the best record at 6-1. Parkdale’s Lazaro Torralba (157) was 5-2. Spalding’s Quentin Bailey (132) was the last Marylander with a winning record at 4-3.
Four guys went 3-4, Spalding’s William McDonough (138), Calvert Hall’s Izaac Robertucci (175), Brian Lopez, and Landon’s Jason Hinton (285). Spalding’s Charlie Mutschler was 2-3 at 113 pounds. Going 2-5 were Landon’s Elijah Adams (100/106) and Potomac’s Cyrus Felton. Evan Durand (120), Conor Armwood (120), and Mt. St. Joseph’s Connor Allison (144) each won one match. Allison was likely hurt as he went 1-0 with his only appearance coming when he received a forfeit versus Nebraska.
Full Brackets and Results can be found here:
14U
16U
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