Cody Thorn
Caio Aron got a first-hand view of how tough the Texas Outlaw tournament was while waiting for his finals.
“You can see the level of competition (here),” said the Woodlands College Park standout. “You had the state finals from last year going for third.”
He got to watch last year’s Class 6A champion Kelby Bernard from Allen pick up a win over El Paso Franklin’s Ian Abdallah.
Then, Aron went out and won the 126-pound bracket with an 11-3 major decision over Salado’s Keagan Sieracki, ranked No. 2 in 5A.
Sieracki beat Bernard, the No. 1-ranked wrestler in 6A, while Aron topped the second-ranked Abdallah by a 1-0 decision in the semifinals.
“He had a really big upset (in the semifinals),” said Aron, the Class 6A 132-pound top-ranked wrestler. “I didn’t want to let that happen again.”
Aron has now won 35 in a row and repeated as the champion of the Outlaw. Last year, he knocked off Airline’s Ernie Perry, a four-time state champion in Louisiana.
Aron won 8 matches in this tournament and had five wins by pins. He also had a 30-15 tech fall win over Carter Hadsall of Tecumseh, Oklahoma.
Aron was named the light weight’s most outstanding wrestler of the tournament.
The Cavaliers also had another champion in sophomore Andrew Huerta.
Ranked No. 2 at 120 pounds, Huerta dropped down a class and won the 113-pound bracket. He beat Frisco Centennial’s Enrique Uribe — No. 2 at 113 in 5A — in the finals by an 11-1 major decision. Huerta rolled up 7 wins and the closest was a 3-1 win in overtime against Cash Wiley from Carl Albert, Okla.
The team standings featured Allen and Rockwall at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. North DeSoto, the Louisiana Division II runners-up from last year, was third. Austin Vandegrift took fourth with 415 points, just ahead of Norman (Okla.) North’s 409.
The Vandegrift Vipers had a pair of champions in the event…
