Vote: Who should be SBLive's Upper Weight National Wrestler of the Week (1/8/2024)?
It's time once again for you to help us decide who is SBLive Sports National High School Upper Weight Wrestler of the Week.
Below are the details on the candidates we have selected for your consideration. Share this post with your friends, family, teammates and classmates and encourage everyone to support the wrestler they find most deserving. You can vote as often as you like and the winner will be announced in next week's poll. Voting ends on Sunday, January 14th at 11:59 p.m. (Pacific).
Congratulations to last week's winner: Leonard Ashley of First Colonial (VA).
Here are this week's nominees:
Cash Raymond (Simley, MN) 152 – Raymond, who is unranked, beat fellow unranked grappler Danny Heiser (Evansville, WI) 10-9 in the finals of the Cheeshead Invitational.
Danny Heiser (Evansville, WI) 152 – Heiser had success at Fargo at 145, but after the move up in weight he was sitting outside the rankings but changed that this weekend with an upset win over No. 9 Wyatt Duchateau (Arrowhead, WI), 8-2, to reach the Cheesehead finals.
Andrew Barbosa (Palm Desert, CA) 157 – No. 13 Barbosa won his title bout at Doc Buchanan over No. 14 Ismael Guerrero (Bixby, OK), 4-0. But, to do that, Barbosa took out No. 4 Grigor Cholakyan (St. John Bosco, CA) in the quarters, 7-2.
Andrew McGonagle (Huntingdon, PA) 189 – McGonagle secured the crown at the Laurel Highlands Conference Tournament with a 6-3 win over Bald Eagle Area’s Caleb Close, who is just outside of the honorable mention section of our 190lb rankings.
Lukas Zalota (Malvern Prep, PA) 190 – The National Prep Tournament rankings were released last week and Zalota’s name did not appear on that list. After Saturday’s Bissell Tournament finals where he beat the No. 6 prep wrestler Mark Ayala (Northfield, Mount Hermon, MA), 3-0, that will be changing.
Sonny Kling (Canyon Springs, CA) 190 – No. 15 Kling appears on this list for the second week in a row. This time it’s because he was crowned the Doc B champ at 190 with a pin in the finals over Trevyn Gates (Pleasant Grove, UT), 5:05.
Trevyn Gates (Pleasant Grove, UT) 190 – Gates makes the list even though he came up short at Doc B because to reach the finals he pulled off two upsets, with the biggest being a pin of No. 12 Jarrel Miller (St. Edward, OH), and the other being a 10-3 win over Diego Costa (Palm Desert, HM).
Ryan Ahern (Rockford, MI) 215 – The unranked Ahern won the gold at the Detroit Catholic Central Invitational by surprising the host’s No. 20 Connor Bercume, 5-2.
Coby Merrill (JW North, CA) 215 – Merrill, who is ranked No. 11 in the nation, didn’t pull off a grand upset for his Doc B cowboy hat, but he did avenge a previous loss to No. 10 Robert Platt (Poway, CA). The two met in the California state finals at 195 last year while competing for other teams. Platt, who was at Brawley, beat Merrill, who was wearing a Gilroy singlet, 3-1. Merrill won the Doc B meeting 3-2.
Dillan Johnson (Joliet Catholic, IL) 285 – No. 5 Johnson met No. 2 Cole Mirasola in early December in the finals of the Dan Gable Donnybrook and dropped a 5-4 decision. The Titans met in the semis at Cheesehead and Johnson flipped the script, winning 9-5. Johnson capped off his run with a 4-1 win over No. 4 Koy Hopke (Amery, WI) in the finals.
