The Youth Movement Is Coming To This Year's Dave Schultz
The Youth Movement Is Coming To This Year's Dave Schultz
The 2019 Dave Schultz Memorial will showcase some incredible young talent in all three styles.
As we are in the middle of long and excellent season of high school and college wrestling, this weekend our attention turns back to the senior level. But the youngsters might steal the show.
Wrestling starts on Thursday with women's freestyle and Greco-Roman, and continues through Saturday. Brackets will eventually be in FloArena, but for now you can find entries there.
Watch the 2019 Dave Schultz Memorial Live On Flo
January 24-26 | 9:30 AM Mountain
There's a bunch of college redshirts ready to make an impact, several female prospects are making their senior level debuts, and the Greco brackets will be filled with Cadet and Junior world teamers.
On the men's freestyle side, Aaron Brooks has won a Cadet world title and made the Junior world finals the past two years. He is spending his grayshirt year at the Olympic Training Center before he heads to Penn State this fall. He'll be vying for the 79kg title with the likes of Nate Jackson and CJ Brucki.
On that Cadet team with Brooks was Gavin Hoffman, who finished with a bronze. Hoffman is currently 16-3 during his redshirt year at Ohio State and will be joined by his Buckeye teammate Sammy Sasso in Colorado Springs. Sasso made the Akron finals the same year Brooks and Hoffman went to worlds.
Along with Sasso, 70kg also has another young star in David Carr. The two met in the 2017 Beast of the East finals, but have never been at the same weight in freestyle. Carr was a 2016 Cadet bronze medalist and is 18-1 during his redshirt season at Iowa State.
The Schultz seems like an excellent new addition to the schedule of redshirts. They spend the fall competing in Opens, finish off their folkstyle season at either the Midlands or Southern Scuffle, and then wrestle in the Schultz as they prepare for the U.S. Open or U23 Trials.
But the tournament can also mark the senior level debuts of high schoolers who are 18 or older. Andrew Alirez is the only one on the men's freestyle side falling in that category, but he is joined by the likes of Cadet world champs Emily Shilson and Macey Kilty on the women's freestyle side.
Alirez made the JR Trials finals at 65kg this past May and will be at the weight once again. Shilson made two straight Cadet world finals, getting her gold this past year. Kilty pulled double duty, winning Cadets and getting silver at Junior worlds.
Kilty's junior teammates included Alisha Howk and Alyvia Fiske, who are wrestling 55kg and 72kg respectively. Also making the trip to Cadet worlds in 2017 was Vayle-Rae Baker, who will be competing alongside her Wyoming Seminary classmate Amanda Walker.
On the Greco side of things, Alston Nutter was on this year's Junior world team and Tommy Brackett was on the Junior Pan Am team.