A Look Back at the top 11 Surprising Victories of the State Tournament
1,240 matches were contested at the OHSAA State Wrestling tournament.
307 (25%) were considered upsets based on DubStat’s Elo Rankings. However, some were more impressive than others.
Below are the top 11 upsets from the tournament:
(generated using DubStat’s Wrestler Comparison Tool)
| Match | Prob Winning | Round | |
| 1 | 285:D2 Eric Hicks (Clear Fork) D 5-4 Jeffery Blair (Chaminade-Julienne) | 7% | Champ 1 |
| 2 | 285:D2 Trent Fulgham (Circleville) D 2-1 Todd Allen (Buckeye (Medina)) | 13% | Champ 1 |
| 3 | 190:D3 Caleb Gregory (Loudonville) D 3-2 Lee Burkett (Troy Christian) | 15% | Cons 2 |
| 4 | 165:D3 Ryan Brubaker (Perry) F 0:31 Brendan Sheehan (Newark Catholic) | 15% | Champ 1 |
| 5 | 113:D1 Jordan Miller (Ross (Hamilton)) F 2:51 Gunnar Havens (Teays Valley) | 16% | Cons 1 |
| 6 | 285:D2 Isaac Asiedu (Bishop Hartley) D 2-1 Zain Bell (Bryan) | 17% | Champ 1 |
| 7 | 150:D2 Blake Norman (West Holmes) D 8-3 James Simms (Fostoria) | 17% | Cons 1 |
| 8 | 285:D2 Trent Fulgham (Circleville) D 2-1 Elisha Baldridge (West Holmes) | 18% | Champ Semi |
| 9 | 106:D2 Zavian Lafountain (Wauseon) D 6-3 Lyric Dickerson (Miami Trace) | 18% | Cons 2 |
| 10 | 285:D3 Dallas McCracken (United) D 2-1 Javen Gaines (Tinora) | 21% | Champ 1 |
| 11 | 150:D1 Eugene Harney (Sycamore) D 4-2 Wynton Denkins (Perrysburg) | 22% | Champ Qtr |
Eugene Harney
Harney had perhaps the most consequential upset of the tournament, knocking off #1 Wynton Denkins in the quarterfinals, paving his path to a state title while greatly diminishing Perrysburg’s chances of taking out St. Ed’s as team champions. However, Harney’s upset was only number 11 on the list of top upsets of the tournament.
Eric Hicks
D2 heavyweight Eric Hicks, who took 4th at the Norwalk District, had the top upset of the tournament taking out #2 Jeffery Blair (Chaminade-Julienne) in the opening round. However, Hicks failed to keep the ball rolling, dropping his next two matches, and falling just shy of the podium. Blair wrestled back to take 5th place.
Heavyweight Parody
Heavyweight matches accounted for five of the top 11 (45%). Trent Fulgham, who was featured in our previous article, “A Cinderella Story,” was responsible for two of the top upsets, taking down #4 Allen (Buckeye) and #1 Baldridge (West Holmes). In fact three of the top upsets occured in round one of the D2 heavyweight bracket. The other heavyweight upset came from Division 3, where McCracken (United) took out Gaines (Tinora) round 1. McCracken had a magical run to the finals before running into a brick wall in Criblez (Allen East).
Round 1 Mayhem
Five out of the 11 upsets (45%) occurred in Round 1, which is not surprising considering it had the highest amount of unevenly matched wrestlers. Accordingly, only one top 11 upset occurred in the quarterfinals (Harney over Denkins) and one in the semifinals (Fulgham over Baldridge). No first place finals matches appeared in our top 11.
Finals Upsets
Although they did not make the top 11, Karson Brown (St Edward) and Tyler Shellenbarger (Mogadore) had the top two upsets of the championship finals, with probabilities of winning of 32% and 36%, respectively.
Top 11 Upsets – Chart
