McDonogh junior Cooper Flynn was a man on a mission this season.
A year after falling in the semifinals at National Preps to Blair Academy’s Ryan Miller, Flynn avenged that loss and won the 120-pound championship to cap his season as a national champion. He defeated Miller for a second time this season in the finals, 3-2, to capture the title.
Flynn, who is ranked No. 5 in the country by FloWrestling, also defeated Miller, ranked sixth, in the semifinals at the Walsh Jesuit Ironman tournament in December in overtime, 3-1.
“We got him twice this year, which was awesome,” McDonogh coach Pete Welch said. “It was a tight score but he controlled the match yesterday.
“He totally deserves it. You can work all you want but it doesn’t guarantee anything. Cooper has completely overworked to put in the work deserving of a national championship. When a kid does everything he’s supposed to and beyond and then gets it, it’s really, really deserving and it’s really sweet.”
Flynn was the only local wrestler to win a championship at the National Preps tournament at Lehigh University, but the Eagles had two others — Harrison Trahan (160) and Garrett Kappes (285) — reach the finals.
McDonogh placed fourth with 158 points behind Wyoming Seminary (349.5), Blair Academy (268.5) and Malvern Prep (225). Mount Saint Joseph (147) placed fifth, Archbishop Spalding (79) finished eighth and Loyola Blakefield (63.5) took 12th.
Welch said Trahan has come a long way since losing in the semifinals at the MIAA tournament. He defeated Mount Saint Joseph’s Connor Strong, 8-5, in the semifinals but lost to Wyoming Seminary’s Gabe Arnold, 3-1, in overtime in the championship match.
“We knew he had the ability but the growth mentally for him to overcome getting pinned in the semifinals at the MIAAs to almost have it happen again at the state tournament to winning the tournament to battling through some really tough matches at Nationals to really be in a position to win the match in the finals in overtime,” Welch said. “He put together a really great couple of weekends.”
Like Flynn, Kappes, a Maryland commit who is ranked No. 18 in the country, placed third at last year’s tournament but couldn’t get past Malvern Prep’s Colton Deery, ranked ninth, in the finals and fell 3-1.
“Garrett had a big kid in the final. He battled well and we thought we had it. He had a takedown late in the match on a great low ankle but he couldn’t get the points and the kid was able to spin out and score on us,” Welch said. “It could have easily gone our way. It didn’t, but Garrett competed the whole way and he went out going for it. He didn’t hang back. … He had a great finish to his career as well.”
Dominic Solis (182, third), Jack Wimmer (195, fourth) and Clayton Gabrielson (132, seventh) also placed for McDonogh.
It was a fitting end to a fantastic season for the Eagles, who went 19-0 in the regular season, won the MIAA tournament and finished second at the MIS state tournament behind the Gaels.
“It’s really rewarding,” Welch said. “This group of kids, we’re a team that had just enough really experienced wrestlers to beat anybody, but also in a position where we have one guy get hurt or one guy doesn’t perform as expected, anybody can beat us. So, you know, it was kind of a season on edge with that but at the same time the kids have just been such a joy to work with.”
Mount Saint Joseph didn’t have any finalists but had seven placers. Chris Barnabae (126), Strong (160) and Parker Warner (195) placed third; Clement Woods (138) and Coleman Nogle (106) finished fourth; Chris Roybal (152) placed seventh; and Joe Couch (113) got eighth.
Spalding had four place-winners in Joe Fisk (138, third), Dustin Radford (195, fifth), Brady Pruett (113, sixth) and Nick Paolucci (145, seventh). Pruett reached the semifinal round but defaulted his final three matches.
James Conway (170, fourth) and Jeremiah Aybar (182, eighth) were on the podium for Loyola Blakefield; Mattheus Carroll (220, seventh) placed for Gilman; MIAA champion CJ Polesovsky (170, eighth) was John Carroll’s only place-winner; and William Thayer (220, sixth) earned a spot for St. Paul’s.