Pennsylvania, California win 16U and Junior Boys Freestyle team titles, respectively
Photo: Hawaii’s Analu Woode earned a fall in the Junior freestyle finals, winning the Aloha State’s first Junior freestyle title in 25 years. Photo by Tony Rotundo.
By Richard Immel, David Gerhart (USA Wrestling)
Junior Boys Freestyle
FARGO, North Dakota – Pennsylvania rewrote the record books on Sunday en route to its eighth-straight 16U Boys Freestyle team title at the 2026 U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals at the FARGODOME.
Pennsylvania smashed the team-scoring record with 352 points, which broke the previous record it set in 2021 with 273 points. Pennsylvania’s 28 All-Americans are also a new mark. The previous benchmark of 21 All-Americans was set in 2012 by Illinois, then matched by Pennsylvania in 2021 and 2025.
The accolades continued to roll in for Pennsylvania, with Alex Marchetti being named Outstanding Wrestler of the tournament. At 132 pounds, Marchetti won the title after beating out his Pennsylvania teammate, CJ Caines, 5-1. Across eight matches, Marchetti notched five technical falls, including a 10-0 tech fall in the semifinals to secure his championship spot.
Fellow Pennsylvania finalists Reece Movahed, Layden Acevedo and Bryce Collins also captured Fargo titles. Movahed shutout Vinny Ferrari of Texas at 144 pounds, 4-0, with Acevedo and Collins winning back-to-back at 175 and 190 pounds, respectively. Acevedo was one of five wrestlers to tech their way to titles after beating Destan Skelly of Minnesota, 11-0. Collins capped off his title run with a 6-2 decision over Duane Leslie of Washington.
Iowa, who finished second in the team race with 178 points, started the championship finals with three-straight champions. Kai McDonald and Johnathan Thompson recorded back-to-back tech falls to start the night. McDonald shutout Pennsylvania’s Grayden Paris, 10-0, at 88 pounds and Thompson claimed a 13-2 win against Jaxon Holtz of Ohio at 94 pounds. Thompson is one of four 16U wrestlers still in the running for a Triple Crown.
Cyrus Millage capped off the three-straight Iowa champions with a 10-8 victory over Nelson Villafane from Pennsylvania. Iowa’s fourth and final champion of the night was Jaimon Mogard (157 pounds), who kept his Triple Crown hopes alive following a 4-1 decision over 2025 Fargo All-American and No. 1 seed Tommy Rowlands of Ohio.
Iowa’s four champions are the most it has produced in tournament history, besting its 2024 output of three champions.
Georgia’s Harrison Murdock and Minnesota’s Sawyer Schendel are the final two wrestlers still in Triple Crown contention. Murdock teched his way to his Fargo title after beating Easton Kammerud of Wisconsin, 10-0. Schendel rallied in the final minute and outlasted Leland Havens of Wisconsin, who was also still in Triple Crown contention heading into the 285-pound final, in a 6-3 decision.
California was the final state to produce multiple champions after Sebastian Gutierrez and Michael Bernabe won back-to-back titles at 106 and 113 pounds. In a battle of returning All-Americans, Bernabe won a 4-4 contest against Iowa’s Diego Robertty in a rematch of last year’s fifth-place bout that went to Robertty. Trialing in the final 10 seconds of his championship match, Gutierrez scored a takedown and earned an extra point on a lost challenge to edge his teammate Cameron Bartlow, 6-5.
Wisconsin’s Kade Splinter posted the final bonus victory of the championship round with a first-period, 10-0 technical fall against Mason Chamberlain from Pennsylvania.
Cohen Reer of Ohio and Jeremy Carver from Indiana both earned All-American status in 2025 and found the top step of the podium during this year’s edition of the U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals. Reer upset top seed Spencer McCammon from Indiana in a 13-5 contest at 120 pounds. As the top seed at 126 pounds, Carver used a late four-point throw to put a stamp on his Fargo title against Arizona’s Kash Larkin.
Rounding out the 16U Boys freestyle champions were Bryar Hooks of Oklahoma and Illia Kyrianenko of Florida. Hooks beat Austin Schield of Washington in the 138-pound championship, 5-3. Kyrianenko outlasted Virginia’s Reza Massjouni in an 8-6 decision.
Following Pennsylvania and Iowa as the top two teams in the team race, California finished third with 128 points, with Ohio (115) in fourth and Wisconsin (100) in fifth.
Before the championship bouts, the third-, fifth-, and seventh-place matches were contested.
The complete placement match results and top 10 in the team standings are available here.
Anthony Samanich of Illinois and Patrick Bulger of Pennsylvania finished tied for the most pins in the tournament with four pins each. Minnesota’s Beckett Edstrom’s 10-second pin from day one of the tournament held throughout the weekend as the fastest pin. As a team, Pennsylvania had 44 falls over the three days.
16U Boys Freestyle
The FARGODOME came alive on Sunday evening with the Junior and 16U Boys freestyle finals taking over the raised mats in the North endzone. The freestyle finals are traditionally one of the most elite sessions of wrestling held on U.S. soil annually, and this year proved no exception.
Pennsylvania product and Virginia Tech commit Melvin Miller became the 13th individual to win at least three Junior freestyle national titles. He built a sound 7-0 lead on Illinois’ Rocco Cassioppi, and coasted to a 7-4 decision in the 165-pound finals. It is the fourth time Miller has stood atop the Fargo podium. He was a 16U champion in 2023 before nabbing three straight Junior titles starting in 2024.
Finishing off an impressive back-to-back run was Antonio Mills of Georgia at 132 pounds. Mills defeated 2023 U17 World champion Paul Kenny of New Jersey in a 12-9 thriller between future Big Ten foes. Mills will attend Ohio State, while Kenny is committed to Iowa. Mills is now the second wrestler from Georgia to win multiple Junior national titles, joining Sean Hage, who won three straight from 1993 to 1995.
Indiana standout Waylon Cressell stopped Nicholas Singer of Pennsylvania from becoming the third repeat champion. After five previous All-America finishes in Fargo, Cressell finally secured top prize with a gutsy 8-3 win over Singer, flipping a 10-0 result from last year’s semifinals. Cressell, who will attend Northern Iowa, is the sole Junior boy to pass the second leg of the USA Wrestling Triple Crown Award. If he wins the Greco-Roman tournament later this week, Cressell would become the 10th Triple Crown winner in the Junior Boys division since the program began in 2007.
The Outstanding Wrestler award for the division went to Analu Woode of Hawaii, who completed a monster run to first place at 113 pounds that included wins over returning champions Nathan Schuman of Pennsylvania and Turner Ross of Oklahoma, returning runner-up Cason Craft of Oklahoma, and 2025 U17 World Team member in Greco-Roman Thales Silva of California. Woode pinned Silva in 3:15 of the finals to become Hawaii’s second Junior national champion, 25 years after Travis Lee got Hawaii on the board.
U17 World champions Sammy Sanchez of California and Michael Mocco of Florida performed to expectations throughout championship runs. Sanchez posted an 11-1 technical fall over three-time 16U Nationals champion Hayden Schwab of Iowa at 126 pounds. Mocco got it done at heavyweight with a late four-pointer to beat Tyson Martin of Wisconsin, 9-6, and win his second title in Fargo, the first at the Junior level.
Joining Sanchez with technical fall wins in the finals were Ty Martin of Iowa at 100 pounds, Brayden Wenrich of Pennsylvania at 120 pounds and Jesse Grajeda of California at 144 pounds.
Additional champions include Luke Loren of California at 106 pounds, Tyler Dekraker of Florida at 138 pounds, Davis Parrow of Minnesota at 150 pounds, Charlie DeSena of Florida at 157 pounds, Zack Aquila of Ohio at 175 pounds and Sam Howard of Indiana at 215 pounds.
Taking the top spot in the team standings and earning the newly-minted Battles Won Award was California, which claimed its first official team title in Junior Boys freestyle, with 197 team points. California outdistanced runner-up Iowa by 39 team points. Rounding out the top five teams were Pennsylvania (157), Florida (119) and Illinois (105).
