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By Cameron Diep
Schedule
Friday, May 16th
Senior Women’s and Men’s Freestyle
Preliminaries and Quarterfinals
10:00 AM – 2:30 PM
Senior Women’s and Men’s Freestyle
Semifinals and ALL Consolation
4:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Saturday, May 17th
Senior Women’s
Finals & 3rd Place
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM *** Time subject to change
Senior Men’s
Finals & 3rd Place
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM ***Time subject to change
The Norton Healthcare Sports & Learning Center in Louisville, Kentucky will be the place to be this Friday through Sunday. The center is hosting two large events, the Senior World Team Trials and the Central Regionals Qualifier for the16U and Junior National Championships, held in Fargo, North Dakota. This preview will feature all Indiana wrestlers competing at the Senior World Team Trials Challenge Tournament.
WOMEN’S FREESTYLE
50 KG: Heather Crull
After finishing her high school career as a 3x IHSAA State Qualifier, an ISGW State Champion, and before heading to McKendree, Indiana gets the privilege of following the 2023 Cadet World Bronze Medalist at the World Team Trials. Crull just recently placed 5th at the U.S. Open, falling to Audrey Jimenez of Lehigh Valley. To get a sense of how good Jimenez is, she just won the Pan-American Championship, teching the Olympic Silver Medalist from Cuba.
62 KG: Alara Boyd
In her attempt to make her fourth world team, Alara Boyd must win the World Team Trials, as do all of these athletes. In Boyd’s case, if she were to win the challenge tournament this weekend, she would then face off against another Indiana native, Olympian Kayla Miracle. In the U.S. Open semi-finals, Boyd dropped a heartbreaker 12-11 decision to Adaugo Nwachukwu of the Army WCAP. If Alara can put together a strong tournament, there’s a high percentage chance that we could see an all-Indiana Final X match at 62 kilograms!
MEN’S FREESTYLE
70 KG: Brayton Lee
It’s really nice to see 3x IHSAA State Champion and D1 All-American Brayton Lee competing regularly again! If you recall, Lee was out of competition due to injuries. After transferring back home and wrestling for the Hoosiers/Indiana RTC, Lee had a fantastic showing at the U.S. Open. It was there that Lee compiled wins over Dayne Morton of California Baptist, Stanford All-American Daniel Cardenas, and 2x NCAA Qualifier Jackson Arrington of NC State. Depending on seeds, it will be interesting to see how B-Lee stacks up against multiple time world medalist James Green and NCAA Champions in Ridge Lovett, Antrell Taylor, and Caleb Henson.
74 KG: Joey Blaze – Purdue
Due to his collegiate success, Indiana gets to claim Purdue’s Joey Blaze (for this article only!) Otherwise, Joey’s roots come from the great state of Ohio. Blaze earned his bid to the World Team Trials tournament by placing 2nd at the 2025 NCAA Championships. Blaze’s biggest tests of the weekend would have to be 2x NCAA Champion David Carr and NCAA Runner Up Michael Caliendo. The winner of the Trials this weekend will await NCAA Champion Mitchell Messenbrink of Penn State at Final X.
65 KG: Jesse Mendez & Nick Lee
*Nick Lee was not in the final preseeds released on Wednesday
Talk about a weight with many age groups! 65 kilograms includes high schoolers in Marcus Blaze & Bo Bassett, a redshirt freshman in Aden Valencia, those still with college eligibility in Brock Hardy, Carter Young, & Jesse Mendez, additional NCAA Runner Ups in Real Woods & Beau Bartlett, AND graduated NCAA Champions in Seth Gross & Nick Lee.
After claiming his 2nd NCAA title for Ohio State, Jesse Mendez put together a strong performance at the U.S. Open, placing 2nd to fellow Buckeye Joey McKenna. It’s been a while since we have seen 2x NCAA Champion Nick Lee wrestle. Lee was promoted to Assistant Wrestling Coach at Penn State just last year, which put a short pause on his competing days. If Lee has been training just as hard as he was before the break, he is more than capable of being the world team rep at 65 kilos. He is one of the only Americans with multiple wins over Zain Retherford and Yianni Diakomihalis.
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