Top fantasy 184 lbers Hunter Bolen (left) and Trey Munoz (photos courtesy of Sam Janicki/Tony Rotundo)To steal the line from last year's FCW Top-20 Articles, everyone knows 125 Pat Glory, 133 Roman Bravo-Young, 174 Carter Starocci, 184 Aaron Brooks, and 285 Gable Steveson are bonus point monsters, and this season they totaled 283 Fpts. Top names and all NCAA Champions or Finalists (Nick Suriano did not make the Top-20).
But here's five names that totaled 328 Fpts: 125 Caleb Smith (APP), 133 Joshua Koderhandt (NAVY), 174 Logan Messer (GMU), 184 Jonathan Loew (COR), and 285 Ben Goldin (PENN). This group only has one All-American (Loew finishing 8th).
And as I say every year, that's the beauty and frustration of Fantasy Sports. Sometimes your top performers are not "household names."
So, with that, let's take a look at this past season's Top-20 at each weight to help give you an early start to win each week this coming year.
To compile these lists, we used standard WrestleStat Fantasy College Wrestling Data & Scoring. Just a reminder of how points were tallied in WrestleStat leagues:
1) The scoring used was Standard Team Scoring across all competitions (+3 for a win by decision, -4 for a loss by Major, etc)
2) Scoring only counted against D1 competition
3) Wins via Forfeits (FFT) would count as +6 towards a wrestler's point total
4) Wins or Losses by Medical Forfeit (MFF) did not count as + or - towards a wrestler's point total
5) Points were only accumulated during the regular season
Notes:
#1 at 184 this year was… a tie! Both wrestled 23 matches, both had 3.3 PPM averages, and both ended with 76 Fpts. Trey Munoz and Hunter Bolen took different paths this season but ended up at the same destination: Bolen had seven wins by pin, four techs, and two majors while Munoz tallied five pins, three techs, and four majors. Munoz had one less loss and two more decisions than Bolen.
The two-time All-American freshman (yeah, you read that right), Parker Keckeisen put in a dominant regular season that had only one loss (a close 3-2 decision to Aaron Brooks at the National Collegiate Duals). Of his 20 matches won, only two were within four points and one within two points with the rest being well out of reach of his opponent.
The Wolfpack holds the #4 AND #5 spots this year with the Hoagie Boy edging out the redshirt Joey Milano by one Fpt.
National Champ Aaron Brooks only wrestled 14 matches, but his bonus rate was 71.4% with only three decisions in the regular season, which helped propel him to #8 over wrestlers like Kyle Cochran or Lane Malczewski, who wrestled twice as many matches.
Speaking of Kyle Cochran, he showed up and showed out this past season. In 2021, Cochran was 4-5 and in 2020 (at 165) went 12-9. This past season, he posted career bests in win percentage, bonus rate, and fantasy production landing at #11 on this list.
Donnell Washington started the season looking like he was destined to wear the Pin Crown for the 2022 season. Eight of his first nine matches were won by Fall, but then only wrestled seven more matches going 4-3 (netting only 4 Fpts). Needless to say, that fantasy head start helped with getting juuuust inside of the Top-10.
San Marino's favorite son started his season just outside of the New Year at the Illinois Matmen Open. Myles Amine won the bracket and finally got that win over Mark Hall (though that didn't count for fantasy). About half his matches were won by bonus and only one loss to eventual Champ Aaron Brooks.
All eight All-Americans made the Top-20 at 184 this season.
Who Missed The Cut:
Even with only three losses and one more match than the tied #20 wrestlers, Gavin Kane (UNC) fell one Fpt short to end the season as #22. Now, Kane spent the beginning of the 2022 season down at 174, where he suffered two of his three losses and recorded one bonus point win. After bumping to 184, Kane rattled off 11 straight wins (five being by bonus).
Jeremiah Kent (MIZZ) finished one point behind Kane, despite wrestling five more D1 matches than Kane. Kent looked to be starting strong, with his first four matches totaling +21 Fpts (two pins, one tech, and one major). But with four losses totaling -16 Fpts, it was just a little too much to overcome and landed Kent as #23.
#24 Fantasy wrestler Michael Battista (UVA) had a string of 12 wins and one loss to start the season, but in his last five matches, he either won (twice) or lost (three times) by Major to end with 34 Fpts.
Other notables to miss the cut include: Taylor Venz at #25 with 32 Fpts, David Key (NAVY) at #28 with 29 Fpts, Cade King (SDSU) at #41 with 20 Fpts, Abe Assad (IOWA) at #44 with 16 Fpts (and an average of 1 PPM), and Tate Samuelson (formerly of WYO) at #45 also with 16 Fpts (and a 0.8 PPM average).
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