Alabama 1A-4A Boys Individual State Team Pre-Season Preview

 Disclaimer

We only know what we know right now, and are going to base our assessments on those details. We are not including any knowledge of injured or not participating wrestlers for this article. Our in season State preview will take into account actual projected lineups and performance up to that point.

On a less serious note, this is a super early preview and is to provide information only to encourage interesting knowledgable discussion and engagement around this topic. Please do not take this too seriously.

Overview

The 1A-4A division is especially interesting because it is so young. This means development of these underclassmen to Championship levels over the next few years will likely be the deciding factor in those State Championships. That will be no different this year. There are a high number of returning State Champions on this list of teams, but there are also several second and third place finishers who would love to knock them off the top of the podium. If one of these top 5 teams can flip a few weight classes, they will also flip the State Championship in their favor.

Top 5 Returning Pre-season Predictions

  1. Weaver
    • Returning Points – 120.5
    • Graduating Points – 33 
    • Last year finish – Second
    • This year prediction – Champion

This one isn’t super complicated, Weaver returns almost an entire team of State qualifiers, 10, with only one who didn’t score points last year. Four of their athletes scored 15 points, or better, including 132 lb Champion, Haiden Hise, Dylan Brown, second place finisher at 165, Cale Fulmer (126) and Gianluca Torres (150) who both placed third. Zachary Hooks (190) finished out this group of high scorers with a fifth place finish. Their other two state placers were Dalton Fink (138) fifth and Gabriel Snyder (144) sixth.

All in, Weaver returns a staggering 120.5 of their 153.5 points from last year, more than our very confident prediction for the 6A Champion, Athens. While most of these wrestlers won’t be the favorites for their weight classes starting out, they are set to move further up the podium, and stack up more bonus points on the way.

CountWeightWrestler NameSchool24-25 Record25-26 Grade24-25 Placement24-25 Points
1106Davon MarburyWeaver42-2510Qualifier5
2113Aiden OvertonWeaver25-309Qualifier0
3120Peyton AndrewsWeaver27-1410Qualifier2
4126Cael FulmerWeaver39-1210Third15.5
5132Haiden HiseWeaver43-810Champion27
6138Dalton FinkWeaver41-1312Fifth12
7144Gabriel SnyderWeaver42-1510Sixth7
8150Gianluca TorresWeaver46-1512Third16
9165Dylan BrownWeaver44-910Second20
10190Zachary HooksWeaver20-711Fifth16
  1. Tallassee
    • Returning Points – 98 
    • Graduating Points – 108
    • Last year finish – Champion 
    • This year prediction – Second

Tallassee earns the second place spot based on their 3 returning Champions who are all setup pretty well to repeat this year, Thomas Patterson (106), Tra`mel Mccoy (165) and Nolan Addeo (215). That means we are getting 75+- points guaranteed with this lineup before even considering the rest of the lineup. To say the rest of the team “only” return four more qualifiers sounds a little funny, but with Weaver returning 10, this does feel a little light. Out of those returners they have two additional placers, fifth place finisher Brady Adams (157) and sixth place finisher Aiden Bridgman (132).

Even with this great returning core, Tallassee lost a lot from last year, 108 points, from their State Championship team. They will need a major reload, and their lower scoring returners to score significantly more points to take down Weaver this year.

CountWeightWrestler NameSchool24-25 Record25-26 Grade24-25 Placement24-25 Points
1106Thomas PattersonTallassee50-211Champion24
2126Dylan PriceTallassee43-1611Qualifier7
3132Aiden BridgmanTallassee41-1912Sixth7
4144Avery BrantleyTallassee48-512Qualifier0
5157Brady AdamsTallassee41-810Fifth11
6165Tra`mel MccoyTallassee45-412Champion26
7215Nolan AddeoTallassee48-212Champion23
  1. Oak Grove
    • Returning Points – 104.5
    • Graduating Points – 8.5
    • Last year finish – Third
    • This year prediction – Third

Oak Grove could very easily have been second on this list, and are actually returning more points (104.5) then Tallassee (98). That being said they are only losing 8.5 points and only returning 5 qualifiers. This sets up as a team that is not likely to see a ton of reinforcements on the State Championship stage. The road to the top of the podium as a team would require the same thing from all of their returning placers, all five of whom finished in the top 3, David Hill (126) Champion, Micah Woodman (120) and Ethan Jones (150) second and Kellen Mitchell (106) and Christian Hill (113) third.

The issue we see is that all of them will likely have to beat one, or two, wrestlers who finished higher on the podium last year to get there. Based on that, and the abundance of returners for the first two teams on this list, we see this as the right spot for Oak Grove in our pre-season rankings.

CountWeightWrestler NameSchool24-25 Record25-26 Grade24-25 Placement24-25 Points
1106Kellen MitchellOak Grove43-59Third17.5
2113Christian HillOak Grove47-69Third17
3120Micah WoodmanOak Grove40-610Second21
4126David HillOak Grove51-011Champion29
5150Ethan JonesOak Grove40-612Second20
  1. Alexandria HS
    • Returning Points – 81.5
    • Graduating Points – 25
    • Last year finish – Fourth
    • This year prediction – Fourth

Alexandria HS is an interesting team with 8 returning qualifiers, including 4 placers, Jeremy Lambert (106) and Ryker Houston (113) both placed second, Hudson Hartzog (120) third and Johnathan Santos (126) sixth. With that many returning qualifiers, and placers, you would probably expect them to be higher on this list.

There are two reasons we didn’t rank this group higher this year:

  1. Five of the qualifiers didn’t score significant points last year.
  2. Their returning qualifiers come from 150 and under.

Putting those two together, we don’t see the pathway for a significant uptick in points to catch the other 3. Why? Because the same weights return a very high percentage of their qualifiers and placers. While we have already seen these weights will spread out a little this year, it will take a lot of the correct alignment to get the points where they need to be for Alexandria to overcome what we see as guaranteed increase for the first three teams.

    CountWeightWrestler NameSchool24-25 Record25-26 Grade24-25 Placement24-25 Points
    1106Jeremy LambertAlexandria HS39-410Second21.5
    2113Ryker HoustonAlexandria HS59-88Second23.5
    3120Hudson HartzogAlexandria HS48-610Third19.5
    4126Johnathan SantosAlexandria HS42-1210Sixth8
    5132Haydenen HartzogAlexandria HS42-1511Qualifier2
    6138Dion GuyAlexandria HS33-1110Qualifier0
    7144Jaden WhittakerAlexandria HS40-2111Qualifier6
    8150Corey OwensAlexandria HS44-1711Qualifier1
    1. Ashville
      • Returning Points – 30
      • Graduating Points – 30
      • Last year finish – Sixth
      • This year prediction – Fifth

    This group is. a little unique, once you get past the top four, there is not a lot of returning fire power. We could see some shifting with the top four, but would be very surprised to see anyone from outside that list find their way in. Taking that into account, we went with the team that looks to have the most potential to lock up this final spot.

    Asheville finished sixth last year, and are returning 4 points scorers from that group, including fourth place finisher Brady Thrash (215). We see a pathway for all of their qualifiers to improve placements this year allowing them to lock up the final spot in this year’s top 5.

    CountWeightWrestler NameSchool24-25 Record25-26 Grade24-25 Placement24-25 Points
    1120Gavin CrawfordAshville44-1411Qualifier5
    2132Owen MeadsAshville47-1412Qualifier4
    3138Trevor WicksAshville50-1012Qualifier5
    4190Trent HorsleyAshville37-2011Qualifier0
    5215Brady ThrashAshville46-512Fourth16

    Knocking on the Door

    • White Plains
      • Returning Points – 25.5
      • Graduating Points – 0
      • Last Year Finish – 10

    White Plains has a Third place Senior returning in Wesley Beebe (157). Depending on where he ends up, he could be the favorite to bring home a Championship this year. The other four qualifiers will need to have big years for White Plains to crack the top 5.

    CountWeightWrestler NameSchool24-25 Record25-26 Grade24-25 Placement24-25 Points
    1106Jack LedbetterWhite Plains38-259Qualifier0
    2132Lyric BrownWhite Plains22-1210Qualifier4
    3150James HeardWhite Plains38-812Qualifier0
    4157Wesley BeebeWhite Plains40-612Third18.5
    5285Hudson IngalsbeWhite Plains34-711Qualifier3

    Big Losses with History

    There are a few fringe teams for this category in the 1A-4A group, but no one we felt strongly enough about to include.

    Need Help

    Most of the remaining teams did not have significant enough success last year, or big enough returns, for us to include them in this category. As we mentioned above, once you get outside of the top 4 in this division it is really going to come down to who developed the most in the off-season to move into a top spot within this group.