Grajeda moves up to 157, fails to place at Super 32
The No. 3 seed in Greensboro lost 4-1 to Chris Arreola and 5-3 to Gage Lohr, per Justin Basch.
Jesse Grajeda left Super 32 without a place after moving up from No. 1 at 144 to wrestle 157, per Justin Basch. He was the No. 3 seed at the weight in Greensboro.
He's the first top-3 seed to leave Greensboro without placing.
The run ended in two losses around one win. Grajeda dropped a 4-1 decision to No. 14 Chris Arreola in the Round of 16, won once on the backside, then lost 5-3 to No. 11 Gage Lohr one match short of the blood round. Basch noted he is the first top-three seed at the tournament to go home without placing.
The scores are the story more than the result. Four-one and five-three are not blowouts, they are the kind of margins that show up when a nationally ranked kid takes on bigger bodies in a bracket that does not care about his ranking at the weight below. Grajeda did not lose to unseeded wrestlers either, Arreola and Lohr were both seeded inside the top 14 at 157.
What the bump cost him
Super 32 is the deepest high school open of the fall, and placing there is the line most recruiting boards treat as proof. Grajeda wrestled the weekend at a weight he does not hold the No. 1 ranking at, and the bracket answered. Nobody has said why he went up or whether 157 is where he plans to stay.
Our take: one weekend at a new weight against seeded opposition is not a referendum on a wrestler who is ranked first in the country at 144, but it does reset expectations for anyone who assumed the move up would be seamless.
Super 32 ran as part of the eleven straight days of wrestling that opened with RAF 14 and run through the Senior World Championships.
What to watch, whether Grajeda stays at 157 for the rest of the folkstyle season or drops back to 144 where he is ranked first.
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