As the last big high school tournament of 2021 Powerade did not disappoint. We got to see some big bouts and of course the match up a lot of people were waiting for with #1 Nick Feldman and #2 Jimmy Mullen.
The biggest story that I saw at Powerade was 172 pounds where some very interesting upsets and just matches in general went down. In the quarterfinals Mike Dellagatta ended up getting the best of Rocco Welsh. This match was dominated by Dellagatta and his incredible defensive capabilities. Gabe Arnold the top seed was knocked off in the quarters by Daniel Wask and ended up falling all the way down to 6th place after dropping a match to Rocco Welsh in overtime. At the end of the day it was Brayden Thompson who was able to come out on top of this loaded bracket and gutted it out winning in the ultimate ride out to secure his Powerade title.
At 160 pounds Nick Fea of Bergen Catholic took on Lorenzo Norman of Blair Academy. We all know how big of a rivalry Bergen vs Blair has been in the years past and this match did not disappoint. Norman lead 5-3 with only a few seconds to go in the bout where Fea was able to secure an incredible reversal and grab 2 back points to take the title in regulation 7-5 in a stunner.
126 and 132 was a cool story with brothers Nic and Vince Bouzakis both claiming Powerade titles back to back. Nic obviously was expected to dominate this tournament and he did exactly that and took care of business. Vince at 126 took out 2 seed Dalton Perry with a crazy match in the round of 16. He then took the momentum all the way to the finals and edged out Maddox Shaw in the finals 5-4.
120 was a bracket that went weird quick after top seed Vinny Kilkeary was knocked off 2-1 in the quarters by Adam Schweitzer in a very controversial match. It looked as if Kilkeary secured multiple takedowns and every one of them was called out of bounds causing the top seed to fall off of a locking lands call. NC State commit Troy Hohman ended up coming out on top against Jack Consiglio 4-3 with a huge early scramble sequence.
Don’t really know how big of a story this is but cadet World Champion Meyer Shapiro dominated his way through the tournament as expected. Shapiro did not let up a single offensive point the entire tournament and was able to cap off a 7-0 win over Ty Watters in the finals.
At 215 Dayton Pitzer was able to take out top seed TJ Stewart in the finals during the ride outs. Honestly not too big of a match I feel Stewart was the favorite here but with him reportedly only weighing in at 200 pounds and going 2015 because he wanted the match with Pitzer not a bad showing. Pitzer wrestled a very good and smart match here with him mat wrestling ability essentially getting him the win.
Now the big Feldman vs Mullen matchup. Nick Feldman shows us again why he is the best in the country. His ability to put up points the way he does on the best kids in the country and his ability to do it while staying poised and not getting stressed when guys put him in rough situations showed in the finals. If Feldman showed one this it was his defense, this is not something many people have really questioned but for the main fact that it has not been tested. Mullen took 3 shots and 2 of the resulted in Feldman getting takedowns, and those were very good shots by Mullen. 12-0 was the final score and there can be things taken away on both sides. Mullen definitely has some things to work on but the score did not exactly do how he wrestled any justice.
