Vote: Who should be SBLive's Lower Weight National Wrestler of the Week (2/27/2024)?
It's time once again for you to help us decide who is SBLive Sports National High School Lower 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, March 3rd at 11:59 p.m. (Pacific).
Congratulations to last week's winner: William Adlfinger of Wilton (Iowa).
Here are this week's nominees:
Charles Esposito (St. Joeseph Regional, NJ) 106 – Esposito won New Jersey’s Region 2 tournament by decking Teaneck’s Oumar Tounkara, who is one of our honorable mention wrestlers at 106lbs. Esposito is not ranked.
Nicholas Salamone (Easton, PA) 107 – Salamone captured the District XI AAA crown by edging honorable mention Emilio Albanese of Emmaus, 4-3.
Cooper Merli (Newburgh, NY) 108 – Merli won a DI state championship by blanking No. 22 Dunia Sibomana (Long Beach), 1-0, in the finals.
Rocklin Zinkin (Buchanan, CA) 113 – Zinkin is currently ranked 12 th in the nation and faced No. 6 Edwin Sierra (Poway) in the California state finals and walked off as the unexpected victor, 2-1.
Nate Desmond (Wyoming Seminary, PA) 120 – Desmond sits in the No. 4 position of our 120lb rankings. While he did not lose to No. 2 Leo DeLuca (Blair Academy, NJ) during the season, he did fall to Beric Jordan at the Ironman while he was wrestling for Stillwater, OK. DeLuca beat Jordan in those finals to establish a clear pecking order. In the National Prep finals, Desmond authored a mild upset over DeLuca, 5-3. Since the Ironman, Jordan has transferred to Noble High School in Oklahoma, where he just won an Oklahoma 5A State title.
Matthew Botello (Wyoming Seminary, PA) 132 – Unlike Desmond, No. 7 Botello had met his National Prep Finals opponent, No. 6 Nick O’Neill (Malvern Prep) three-times during the season and lost all three encounters (Ironman, PowerAde, and the PA National Prep Qualifier). He turned the tables on his rival in the prep finals, pocketing a 5-4 win.
G. Elias Navida (Poway, CA) 132 – Navida is one of our honorable mention grapplers at 132lbs as was his California State Finals opponent Jesse Grajeda (St. John Bosco), whom Navida defeated 6-4 in overtime. The win that gained Navida this nomination, though, came in the semis, 3-1, versus No. 16 Victor Alexander Gutierrez (Central Catholic).
Cyrus Hurd (North East, PA) 133 – Hurd is the first honorable mention entry at 132lbs, sitting right behind No. 25 Hunter Gould (Conneaut Area). Gould beat Hurd in the fifth-place match at last year’s AA state tournament, 4-0, and this year in the finals of the Fred Bell Tournament, 4-1. Hurd was able to get the best of Gould in the AA District 10 finals this weekend,2-1.
Brock Weiss (Jersey Shore, PA) 139 – Weiss, who is unranked nationally, shocked No. 11 Dalton Perry (Central Mountain), 9-8, in the finals of the AAA Northwest Region.
