2024 Fargo recap - The Hawkeye edition
The world’s largest high school wrestling tournament – and perhaps its largest of any classification – has finally come to a close out in the upper Midwest.
2024 Fargo Nationals began over a week ago with girls freestyle competition, followed by the boys in the same discipline and finally some Greco-Roman action to cap things off this weekend.
(Oh, and with a little bit of beach wrestling sprinkled in between it all for good measure.)
Ten future Hawkeyes were in attendance amongst the eight thousand-plus competitors, and a few of them put up impressive performances on their way to deep tournament runs – including multiple All-American honors, a pair of finals appearances and one national championship.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the group’s results spanning eight days inside the Fargodome.
We’ll go in chronological order from the week-and-change that was, which means first up is a quartet of incoming Hawkeye women.
Brooks dominates all comers, Solorio takes second due to unfortunate injury default
Things sure can change fast, can’t they?
Entering Fargo 2024 Karlee Brooks had yet to bring home a ‘stop sign’ (individual title) in her two previous forays at the event.
Now, the Team Arizona representative very much has after steamrolling her way to a Junior Freestyle title at 125 pounds.
The 16th-ranked pound-for-pound recruit in the country lived up to her billing in pretty much every way – bonus’ing her way into the semifinals without surrendering a single point over four matches.
It was in the semis that Brooks would face her toughest test of the weekend as reigning 138-pound Fargo champ Kaidance Gerg (Idaho) stood in her way. And while a 5-3 final margin certainly alludes to somewhat of an uncertain outcome, the future Hawkeye controlled most of the action and carried a 5-0 lead into the last 40 seconds of the bout.
Upon reaching the finals Brooks would press the ‘accelerator’ all the way to the floor once again, racking up her fifth tech. fall victory of the tournament – this one of the 10-0 first-period variety.
If, for some reason the opinion needed any reinforcing prior to this result, Brooks’ impressive Fargo display merely added to my confidence that she will likely step right into the Hawkeye lineup next season as its top option at 124 pounds.
Elsewhere in girls freestyle action, it appeared for the longest time that a second incoming Hawkeye would be joining Brooks atop the podium on Sunday night at the Fargodome.
It was easy to get that feeling after 4th-ranked 100-pounder Valarie Solorio cruised all the way to the finals herself, registering three tech. falls and as many pins (one) as points allowed (also one) in the process.
An early 4-0 lead in the championship bout only made the title feel even more likely, but disaster struck with about a minute left in second period when Solorio’s head struck the mat hard while attempting to defend a throw attempt by 5th-ranked Katey Valdez (Colorado).
Valdez was ultimately awarded a takedown – and 4-4 lead on criteria – before action was stopped to attend to the visibly shaken up Solorio (competing for Team Pennsylvania).
A prolonged delay ensued as a mat-side physician checked on the future Hawkeye and it was ultimately determined that she would not be allowed to continue the remainder of the match.
Solorio would later offer this reassuring Instagram post on the situation, much to everyone’s relief.
Even despite the loss via injury default, she still concludes her Fargo career with about as impressive a resume as you’ll find – a 2021 16U individual title (94 pounds) plus a pair of runner-up finishes in the Junior division (100 pounds).
The two other Iowa-affiliated young women competing this weekend – Kiara Djoumessi (IA) and Mia Goodwin (VA) – may not have advanced nearly as far as their more highly-rated future teammates, but merit mentioning all the same.
At 140 pounds, back-to-back Iowa state champion Djoumessi (ranked 15th nationally at the same weight) would fall just one win shy of All-American (top eight) status.
After reaching the Round of 16 a loss to the eventual fifth-place finisher would send the Waverly Shell-Rock graduate to the consolations. Once there, consecutive victories had Djoumessi one more away from reaching the podium.
But Alaska’s (yes, Alaska’s) Amelia Fawcett would prove to be a challenge too steep on this day, pinning the Hawkeye in the ‘blood round’ to halt her tournament run for good.
(Fawcett would go on to take third at 140.)
Djoumessi’s final Fargo appearance came to a close with a 4-2 record – including a trio of falls.
Down at 110 pounds, Mia Goodwin found herself alternating wins and losses on her way to a 2-2 exit. However, the wins certainly didn’t lack for action – with a combined 30 points scored by the Virginian between them.
The two defeats weren’t exactly cheap ones either – coming against eventual Round of 12 and 7th-place finishers from Maryland and Indiana respectively.
Goodwin’s attention can now turn squarely toward her new home for the next 4-5 years, where she’ll join her three aforementioned teammates in Iowa City in less than a month.
Less hardware, but positives remain for some of Iowa’s more unheralded men’s commits
Unlike the girls’ side of the competition at Fargo, the Boys Junior division is oftentimes not as well attended by a lot of the nation’s top incoming collegiate prospects.
That was certainly the case for Iowa this year, as both of its top-ranked freshman-to-be – Angelo Ferrari and Miguel Estrada – elected not to make the trek to North Dakota.
The deepest runs of the past week amongst five 2024 commits were made by Team Iowa reps Dru Ayala (120 pounds) and Kael Voinovich (157) – both of whom reached the quarterfinals in their respective brackets.
Ayala wound up losing via tech. fall (15-5) in an otherwise competitive bout that got blown open by a pair of tight leg laces from his opponent from Pennsylvania, eventual tournament runner up Brock Rothermel.
The Fort Dodge native would then win a couple of barnburner matches on the backside of the bracket (11-11 on criteria and 13-11 at the buzzer) to ultimately help him to a 7th-place finish and the third All-American honor of his Fargo career.
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Coincidentally, Voinovich also fell to an eventual runner up, this instance in a tight 6-4 decision that the incoming Hawkeye could’ve easily flipped in his favor had he been able to convert on a couple of great scoring opportunities. Alas, he’d drop to the consolations where a second-consecutive loss stopped him just short of a spot on the podium.
Both younger brothers of current Hawkeyes will likely redshirt in their first season on campus.
Elsewhere in boys freestyle action a pair of four-time high school state champions had contrasting lengths of stay in the competition.
At 175 pounds, Brady Benham (Oklahoma) saw the quickest exit of any of Iowa’s incoming prospects – winning his opener before suffering two-straight defeats to end his Fargo run.
Conversely, 126-pounder Keyan Hernandez (Montana) managed to ‘stay alive’ despite having his back against the wall for so long that he arguably left an imprint somewhere inside of the Fargodome.
After losing his opening match via decision, Hernandez rattled off six wins in-a-row on the backside before a razor-thin 10-8 defeat eliminated him from the tournament just two wins shy of becoming an All-American.
And finally, the largest of Iowa’s five-man freestyle contingent also happened to be the latest addition to its 2024 recruiting class.
Ballard’s Brody Sampson became commitment number 11 for Tom Brands & Co. back in late-June and would follow it up with a couple of impressive victories last week – knocking off a former folkstyle national champion and a 2023 U17 Greco-Roman World teamer in back-to-back matches to reach the Round of 16.
A 4-2 defeat would send Sampson to the backside, where he’d split a pair of bouts to finish two wins from making the podium – same as Hernandez.
Bowling IV nearly strikes Greco gold
The last Iowa commit to take the mat at Fargo will also be the last of them to arrive on campus in Iowa City.
Leister Bowling IV (Colorado) is a 2025 Hawkeye pledge who happened to be testing his mettle in the Boys Junior Greco division late last week.
Things couldn’t have gone much better for the 12th-seeded 157-pounder early on, as he reached the semifinals outscoring his five opponents by a combined 44-1.
Once there, a low-scoring affair saw Bowling IV trailing 3-1 just over a minute into the second period when he finally got his chance on top in par terre. The Coloradoan tried to seize his opportunity (and the lead) with a gut-wrench, but instead found himself getting stepped over by #1 seed Brett Back (Wisconsin) who was able to keep him in danger before eventually securing the fall.
A bounce-back win in the consi-semis (yet another by bonus) got Bowling IV to the third-place match, where he’d lose a 4-3 nailbiter to an opponent from Utah.
I don’t need to tell people how thin the margins are at the top levels of this sport, and I certainly don’t need to tell Bowling IV. Even so, perhaps it’ll be some small consolation to know that he was right there with the top guys in this bracket.
Short time
That’s everything I’ve got from eight wall-to-wall days of action out at the Fargodome.
Hopefully this will be a nice little final sneak peek for Hawk fans out there at some of the incoming freshmen on both the men’s/women’s teams for the season ahead because as of today we’re pretty much out of new data points to gather between now and November.
These recruits will officially arrive on campus next month, and from there we won’t see them on the mat again until the start of collegiate competition.
Thanks as always for following along, and don’t stray too far because our next wrestling content on the docket is a pretty big one.
We’re now 17 days (August 8th) from Spencer Lee taking the mat in Paris for a shot at Olympic gold.
I’ll have at least two preview articles between now and then, so clear your schedules and get ready (mostly for Spencer, but also the articles).
This has been a lot of fun, and I’m absolutely stoked for the couple of weeks ahead.
‘Till next time.
