The Best 1st Round Matches at the State Tournament

These guys have to be ready from match one!

With the state tournaments rapidly approaching and brackets posted, I’m sure many of you have picked through the brackets for your team or your wrestlers. Or just for fun. As we’re perusing through these, it’s fun to look for and imagine potential state semifinals and championship bouts. But, as our coaching friends say, “one match at a time.” That is very evident up-and-down the brackets are there are some huge matches right off the bat. Many wrestlers will have no time to get an easy match under their belt. It’ll be a dog fight from the opening whistle. Today, those are the matches I’m aiming to identify. Which are the matches that feature potential high finishers clashing in round one.

We went through brackets from all six classes to point out some of the best. You’ll only find classes 3A-6A below as the 1A and 2A bracket are smaller and feature some byes. There are some great matches to be had, they are just in later rounds.

Let me know if there’s any that have been omitted!

Best first round matches

6A 106 lbs: Nolan Mather (Grassfield) vs. Levi Suzuki (South Lakes), Ibrahim Qureshi (Langley) vs. Ben Viola (Western Branch)

6A 113 lbs: Jayden Villatoro (Brooke Point) vs. Johann Jose (Fairfax)

6A 120 lbs: Connor Nielson (Colonial Forge) vs. David Dight (Thomas Dight), Tavian Melvin (McLean) vs. Jaymar Custodio (Landstown)