The first tournament of the end of the year series was postponed by snow. Then it was condensed into a one day tournament on Monday. It hardly mattered as the Dons wrestled hard and crowned Gus Moreno as MIAA champ at 160lbs. It was the first MIAA champ for Loyola since Colin Schuster’s championship in 2007. The rest of the team did well as well as the Dons had 9 place winners of the 13 wrestlers entered. As a team loyola finished in 5th place.

The next weekend at the MIS state tournament however the Dons turned in perhaps their finest team effort. Down to 12 wrestlers with a late injury to 215 lb COlin Marshall Loyola managed to tie for fourth place with McDonogh. Gus Moreno led the team with a state championship win over longtime foe Avery Williams with a finals pin in 16 seconds. Gus had four first period pins of the five matches he wrestled in the tournament making a strong argument for Outstanding Wrestler. In addition to Gus’s victory there were several other outstanding performances turned in by David Mohler, Ben Smist, Conan Schuster, Mike Zito and Gary Forward who all claimed fourth place honors. All in all the Dons qualified 8 wresters for the next weekend’s National Prep Tournament at Lehigh University.

A season of close finishes came to an end as three wrestlers all fell one match short of All- American Honors at National Preps. Conan Schuster, and Seniors Kevin Frantz and Gus Moreno wrestled hard back through the consolations but all lost the final match that would have put them into the top eight. Loyola finished in 34th place in the event.

Loyola completed what looks like their last dual meet of the season with a road loss to league leading and top ranked Mount St. Joe 46-18. We are assuming it is the last dual match of the year because with Spalding scheduled for friday, and already snowed out and MIAA’s beginning this Friday it may not be possible to get another match in before the end of the year. The rest of February looks like this: February 12-13 MIAA tournament at MSJ (hopefully), February 14 Baltimore County regional tournament at Loyola -- we host and it will be all hands on deck to man the tournament, then February 19+20 MIS tournament at McDonogh, then finally February 26th and 27th the National Prep Tournament at Lehigh University in sunny Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.