INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Neosho’s Cayden Auch etched his name in the state history book, while Carl Junction’s Jesse Cassatt tied a bit of school history during the MSHSAA Class 3 Wrestling Championships held on Friday at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence.
Auch became the 35th wrestler in MSHSAA history to win four straight state championships — breaking his tie with Nate Rodriguez for the most for the Wildcats. Later in the night, Cassatt won a second straight state championship, tying a mark set by his current head coach Mike Frizzell.
Neosho finished second in the team chase and came up short in a quest to win three straight titles — as Class 3 newcomer Whitfield won its first in the class and won its fifth straight counting Class 1 titles. The Wildcats finished with 148 points, while Whitfield had 182.
The team trophy was the 14th straight for the Wildcats, a streak that started in 2008.
The highlight of the day was Auch, who finished his career with a 49-0 season this year and claimed the 160-pound championship. Overall, he finished with a 202-6 record – a mark that will put him fifth all-time in MSHSAA history. The group above him features a pair of Neosho wrestlers, Kyler Rea and Nate Rodriguez. Right ahead of Auch is Olympian J’den Cox, who had 205. Seneca’s Will Roark holds the record with 214 wins.
This was the only undefeated season for Auch, whose previous best was a 39-1 record his sophomore year. Auch opened his title run with an 11-3 major decision over Riley Brown of Smithville. In the semifinals, Auch beat Rockwood Summit’s Ty Brunk by a pin in 3:36 and capped off his Neosho legacy with a 10-3 decision over Wyatt Haynes of Wentzville Liberty, who entered with a 49-1 record.
“Before I got into high school I thought I could be a four-time champion,” Auch said. “I believed and bought into Coach (Jeremy) Phillips. I believed I would do it and I went out there and worked for it. It feels good to be up there in the category of guys I looked up to and I can rub it in Nate a little, he’s a four-time finalist and three-time champion. He helped me a lot throughout the years. It is exciting.”
Auch will wrestle for Arkansas-Little Rock next and starts his quest to be yet another All-American at the next level that started at Neosho.
“Success breeds success and some of the guys that were his role models in youth wrestling helped himself to those goals and hopefully he does the same as a college wrestler,” Phillip said.
The win for Auch was the only one despite having six Wildcats in the finals. Two of those losses came head-to-head against Whitfield, which allowed the St. Louis powerhouse to pull away and secure the team title after entering the finals with a 16-point lead over Neosho.
Raymond Hembree finished as the runner-up for the second year in a row at 106, falling 6-0 to Porter Matecki of Whitfield. Hembree finished the year with a 41-7 mark. Landon Kivett reached the finals at 120 but lost to a defending state champion in Evan Binder, the Whitfield star who finished the year 43-0. Kivett went 3-1 on the day and capped the year with a 32-8 mark.
Sophomore Eli Zar also finished second for the Wildcats, losing to Pacific’s Callum Sitek, who put the finishing touches on a 52-0 season with an 8-0 major decision. Zar beat the fifth-place (Whitfield’s Logan Ferrero) and third-place (Platte County’s Eli Rocha) finishers on the way to the medal. Zar was 36-8 this year.
Seniors Eric Holt and Jeremiah Larson were the final two medalists for the Wildcats, both coming up second in state title matches. Holt (41-9) lost the 170-pound by a pin against Hannibal’s Trevor Wilson. To reach the finals, Holt got a 7-5 sudden victory in overtime against Whitfield’s Reese Callahan.
Larson (195) saw his perfect season come to an end after losing to Grain Valley’s Hunter Newsom, 6-5, in the finals.
Hayden Crane (132) took third for the Wildcats, his only loss was to eventual state champion Eli Ashcroft of Kearney in the semifinals. Crane, 39-10, ended with a 10-8 decision over Hazelwood East’s Eittien Rogers.
The Wildcats never could catch up to Whitfield despite some head-to-head wins as the private school had 11 qualifiers – five of whom won state championships.
Phillips lamented the loss of some would-be-varsity wrestlers and noted some of them could’ve helped make the difference. Last year Drayke Perry won a state championship at 220 but didn’t come out for the team this winter.
“We got to get more kids here,” Phillips said. “We were qualifying 14, 13, 12 (when we won titles). We gotta get back to double digits. That was one of my goals this year. I knew when we got eight we would have a big uphill battle but one I had to sell to the kids. I told them they had to focus and they did their best.
“Overall, I was very pleased with how we prepared ourselves for every match and wrestled our match, for the most part. At the end, it sticks out and that hurts … to lose five of those final matches. That is the thing I told them, we’d like to get a different result but not a thing we can do about it now.”
CARL JUNCTION: CASSATT WINS SECOND STRAIGHT TITLE
Both of Carl Junction state qualifiers brought home medals, headlined by Cassatt winning the 182-pound title – a year after winning the 195-pound class.
The senior talked to many college coaches since last wrestling season and a few of them said they would consider him an 184-pound wrestler in college. So, Cassatt went to work on it, got down to a lower weight class and spent all season ranked No. 1 in the MissouriWrestling.com poll.
He ended the season No. 1 as well, picking up a win over a fellow returning state champion in Chase Brock of Whitfield – the 182-pound Class 1 champion. Cassatt secured a 5-2, getting a late takedown over Brock, who was just 10-0 entering the match. Cassatt (50-0) also had a 5-2 winning margin in the semifinals, where he upended Festus’ Luke Shaver, who was 43-0 entering the match.
The key to beating Brock came in what the coaching staff saw earlier in the day. The longer Brock wrestled the more Brock – a runner-up in 2019 – wore down. Cassatt got a takedown at the end of the second period to take a 3-1 lead and never trailed again. He opened the period 1-0 but got a quick escape to tie it.
“It is extremely hard,” Cassatt said of repeating as a champion. “Everyone is coming after you and that made it so much better. This is something I have dreamed about as a kid as a youth wrestler.”
With 20 seconds left in the third, Cassatt got a takedown to account for the final score. With four second left, Frizzell threw his hands up to celebrate before hugging the champion.
Cassatt joins Frizzell as the only Bulldog wrestler to win multiple state championships, a superlative his coach set in 1986 and 1987.
“I can’t put into words for being the coach of the next two-timer at Carl Junction whenever I’m the only two-timer at Carl Junction,” Frizzell said. “It comes full circle for me. It was a record I was proud of for so many years but to be able to be the coach that comes in and coach a kid that takes that record, how does it get any better?”
Lukas Walker was also at state and he posted a 4-1 mark to take fifth place. The only loss was to Whitfield’s Parker Matecki in the quarterfinals. Walker (41-7) then won three straight to earn a medal in the abridged one-day tournament. Three of his four wins were by fall, including a takedown in 1:00 against Hillsboro’s Aidan Black.
WEBB CITY: OTT, CARRANCO MEDAL
The Cardinals had only two wrestlers at the state meet and both brought home medals.
Senior Jacob Ott reached the semifinals but lost his final two matches to finish 29-8 and place fourth at 195. Ott went 2-2 at state, winning a first-round match and then getting a win by fall against Parkway North’s James Harris in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, Grain Valley’s Hunter Newsom, got a 6-2 win over Ott. Newsom ended up winning the state championship. Ott’s day ended with an 11-3 major decision loss to Platte County’s Jaydon Walls in the third-place match.
Another senior, Roger Carranco, placed sixth for the Cardinals at 182. He lost to Brock – who lost to Cassatt – in the quarterfinals. Carranco (30-10) won his next two matches to earn a medal – which includes knocking off state-ranked Jake Fernandez of Platte County by a 12-3 major decision. In the fifth-place match, Rolla’s Hayden Fane beat Carranco.
