The 2025 state high school wrestling tournament was the most successful in years for Columbus diocesan schools.
Columbus Bishop Watterson and Columbus St. Francis DeSales finished 1-2 in the Division II team standings on Sunday, March 9 at the Schottenstein Center, with Watterson totaling 108 points and DeSales 74.5.
It’s Watterson’s first state crown, the fifth for a Central Catholic League school and the league’s first in 35 years. Other CCL state champions were DeSales in 1971 and 1974 in the combined Class A-AA category and 1977 in Class A, and Columbus Bishop Ready in 1982 in Class A and 1990 in Division III.
Winning individual championships were Watterson’s Mitchell Younger (144 pounds) and Michael Boyle (215) and Columbus Bishop Hartley’s Aiden King (138). The 138-pound match was an all-CCL affair with King, who finished with a 41-2 season record, defeating Watterson’s Tommy Rowlands by technical fall 18-0 for his second consecutive state title.
Besides Rowlands, Watterson’s James Lindsay (150) and DeSales’ Joel Welch (165) and Andrew Barford (175) made it to championship matches before losing.
Younger won his third Ohio title, all at 144, in four years. He finished fourth last year when he moved up to 150. His 5-3 victory over Steubenville’s Cooper Smith completed a 36-match undefeated season.
His three championships allow his picture to be placed in the Hall of Fame of three- and four-time state champions located in the tunnel wrestlers run through on their way to the Schottenstein Center arena.
Other wrestlers from diocesan schools who have earned the honor are four-time champions Mark Zimmer of DeSales, who won titles from 1976 to 1979, Ken Ramsey (Lancaster Fisher Catholic 1984-1985; Bishop Ready 1986-1987) and C.P. Schlatter (DeSales 2000-2001, St. Paris Graham 2002-2003) and three-time title winners Dominic DiSabato (Ready 1989-1991) and Luke Fickell, the current University of Wisconsin and former University of Cincinnati and Ohio State football coach (DeSales 1990-1992).
Boyle (25-2 for the year), who won at 165 last year as a freshman, bulked up this year to take the crown at 215 and has the potential to be the fourth four-time champion with CCL ties. His 2-1 championship victory over Akron Hoban’s Brayton Feister was considered an upset. He helped the Eagles win the 2024 state football championship as a nose guard.
“Mitch has been dominant this year and set the bar for every one of his teammates by passing down an expectation of excellence,” Watterson coach Felix Catheline said. “Michael, on the other hand, had to claw his way through the tournament to get a shot at the guy from Hoban. He’s an example of persistence. There’s no doubt he will be a Division I football player in two years. He already has offers from about 15 schools.”
Watterson’s success is all the more remarkable because the school dropped wrestling in 2016-17 and 2017-18 because of lack of interest. The school hired Catheline, who had coached football and wrestling at West Salem Northwestern, Columbus South and Columbus West high schools, to revive the program in the fall of 2018 and it has been on an upward climb since then. Catheline also has been Watterson’s defensive line coach in football but resigned that post to concentrate on wrestling.
“You need interest from wrestlers in many weight classes for a successful program,” he said. “Several former Watterson teams had one or two good wrestlers, then they would leave and interest in the sport would wane until it reached the point where the school didn’t have enough wrestlers for even a partial team.” The sport has 14 weight classifications and most teams have at least one competitor in a majority of them.
Program depth, as much as individual success, is what wins team championships in wrestling. Watterson had six state qualifiers, with Thomas Lindsay at 132 scoring team points by making it to the semifinals and winning a consolation match. Greyson Conyers at 120 was the Eagles’ other wrestler in the tournament.
Catheline credits the school’s success on the mat in recent years to the Eagle Wrestling Club formed by former Watterson wrestler Phil Anglim and Rowlands’ father, also named Tommy, a two-time state title winner at Ready and a two-time NCAA champion at Ohio State. “That’s what turned things around,” Catheline said. “They got enough kids interested so the program could be revived, it started having some success and soon others wanted to join.
“From having to struggle to field a team, we’re now at a point where it’s reasonable to set goals every year to win the CCL and the Central District and state championships.
“We really thought we had a good shot at winning the state this year from the start because Graham dropped to Division III for at least the next two years because of declining enrollment. I don’t think we could have done it if we had Graham to compete with because they’re just always so strong and deep,” Catheline said.
Graham, located in rural Champaign County, is one of Ohio’s two dominant wrestling programs and won this year’s Division III title, its 26th overall. Graham had won 23 state championships in a row and 25 overall in Division II or Class AA from 1982 to 2024. There was no tournament in 2020 because of COVID. The other powerhouse, Lakewood St. Edward, has won 37 titles, including the last 10 in a row, in Division I or Class AAA.
“These are the programs we want to compare ourselves against. I want to schedule dual meets against St. Ed’s and Graham every year as long as I’m coach so we can compete with the best,” Catheline said. “This is our first championship, but I don’t want it to be the last. With what we’ve started here, I think we can be championship contenders for at least the next seven or eight years.”
Catheline, a graduate of The College of Wooster, wrestled and played football at Youngstown Ursuline High School. “I was a three-time sectional qualifier, but that’s as far as I got,” he said. “But being educated in Catholic schools played a big part in making me want to coach young people. I wouldn’t be doing this today without the example of Dick Angle, who was a coach at Ursuline from 1979 to 1997. The way he treated me was the way to treat young athletes. Trying to be like him inspires me every day.”
Catheline said another role model for him and his team is Deacon Tom Rowlands of Columbus St. Margaret of Cortona Church. Deacon Rowlands is the grandfather of the current team member and father of the wrestling club founder with the same name and coached wrestling and football at Lancaster Fisher Catholic High School before turning to a business career.
Like Watterson, DeSales had a deep roster for the tournament, with Josh Sheets (120) and Lincoln Shulaw (190) also scoring points. Eddie Vitu (126) was the Stallions’ other state qualifier.
“We felt this was going to be a rebuilding year, but knew we had the firepower to be among the top five teams in the tournament if Welch and Barford stepped up, and that’s what they did. They were the team leaders, but this was really a team of 15 wrestlers who led each other, and their results showed it,” said Stallions coach, Collin Palmer, whose picture is on the Schottenstein Center wall as a four-time champion from 2006 to 2009 for St. Edward.
Palmer, who operates a wrestling academy, has been at DeSales since 2019 and assisted the wrestling program at Summit Station Licking Heights after graduating from Ohio State. There has been at least one state placer on each of his DeSales teams, with the Stallions finishing fifth, second, third and second, respectively, from 2022 through this season.
“Success breeds success,” Palmer said. “This year, we were rebuilding and still did well. The 2025-2026 season will be a reloading year, with four to six good freshmen and maybe a couple more ready to keep the DeSales tradition going. That’s the kind of thing that makes coaching a lot of fun.”
Two of this year’s DeSales wrestlers earned scholarships to college, with Barford going to VMI and Shulaw to Virginia in the fall.
Hartley’s King, who will join Shulaw at Virginia, had what his coach, Kevin Petrella, described as “one of the most dominant runs in state tournament history,” outscoring his four opponents 64-0 in winning three matches by technical fall and one by a pin in 1:52.
“He’s one of the most decorated wrestlers in state history – a four-time placer, three-time finalist and two-time champion, and he’s earned it all with a great work ethic,” Petrella said. “Every wrestler has a unique skill set and with Aidan, he’s especially talented in the ‘top’ position, making him very difficult to wrestle.
“There were some significant rule changes in high school and college wrestling this season related to near-falls and Aidan figured out quickly how to use them to his advantage. That helped him to three quick technical falls in the tournament, and his final was his best performance of the weekend.”
The Petrella name is synonymous with Hartley wrestling. Kevin, one of five brothers who have wrestled for the Hawks, has coached the team for 15 years, holding a position once occupied by the brothers’ father, Paul.
One of the brothers, Michael, is a two-time NCAA Division III champion for Baldwin Wallace University near Cleveland, where Paul was a national champion in the 1970s. Michael had a 112-match winning streak entering this year’s NCAA meet.
Kevin said he’s grateful for the opportunity to lead the wrestling program at a Catholic school. “It’s a huge part of the program,” he said. “Being able to pray together as a team before all practices and meets, just being able to share your personal faith experiences, is something you’re unable to do at secular institutions, and I think it does a lot in bringing team members closer together.”
Besides King, Hartley had one other state qualifier, senior Malik Tufts, who finished seventh at 215. The Hawks totaled 33.5 points to place 15th in the team standings.
“Obviously, we lose a lot with Aiden and Malik leaving,” Petrella said. “We expected to have a couple more guys at state this year, and I anticipate they’ll be doing the work in the off-season that will make them ready to go when practice starts up again.”