Officially, Dexter Larimore has wrestled his final match.
And he went out with a bang, winning the heavyweight title at the National High School Seniors Wrestling Championships in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
The Merrillville senior also had won a state title in February, but his wrestling career will come to an end as an Ohio State football signee, having turned down a number of wrestling scholarship offers.
“It’s great,” Larimore, the Post-Tribune Wrestler of the Year, the P-T Defensive Player of the Year in football, and a state-caliber thrower in track, said of winning the title. “It’s something few people from Indiana have ever done.”
Five, to be exact, including his Merrillville coach David Maldonado, who won in 1994 at 130 pounds for East Chicago.
“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Maldonado said. “That’s a really tough tournament to win.”
And Larimore, who went 48-0 as a senior and 173-15 for his career, went through a veritable who’s who list of heavyweights from around the country.
In the finals, Larimore, ranked as the No. 2 high school heavyweight in the country, beat Oklahoma’s Nathan Fernandez 3-2. Fernandez, No. 4 in the nation, went 39-2 as a senior for his third straight state title, and is an Iowa State recruit; Larimore had received a wrestling offer from the Cyclones.
Along the way, Larimore beat Wisconsin’s William McCormick (who went 43-0 for a state title) 14-0, pinned Oklahoma’s Wes Grant (who went 36-1 to place third after winning a state title as a junior) in 1:08, pinned New York’s Bryant Deinhardt (who went 32-0 for a state title) in 1:32, and beat Idaho’s Landon Harris (who went 42-0 for his second straight state title) 8-5 in the semifinals.
“I think this is above everything,” Larimore said.
Larimore didn’t get the details of his opponents’ respective credentials until after he wrestled them.
“I didn’t want to get myself into that mindset,” he said. “I just wrestled like I have all season. I wrestled with confidence in my moves, wrestled smart and didn’t let the guys play any mind games. I just went out and wrestled, and whatever happened, happened.”
Maldonado described Larimore as the favorite, saying, “He was focused the whole time and handled the pressure with everyone gunning for him.”
Maldonado related a story about how he passed out goals sheets when Larimore was a freshman and asked each wrestler to list his top three goals and put it somewhere visible. Larimore ” whose goals were to be a Division I athlete, to be the best he could at everything he did and to be a state champion ” taped it on a bathroom wall in his family’s house, which didn’t sit too well with his mother Theresia, who framed it for him. It then resided on the bathroom wall throughout Larimore’s high school career, and he gave it to Maldonado ” signed ” at Merrillville’s awards banquet.
“This kid actually listened to me and did it,” Maldonado said. “He’s definitely a unique athlete, and he’s just a great kid. He’s going to do a lot of good things in athletics or whatever business he gets into.
“This is like a last chapter. He went as far as he can. People will be talking about this for a long time.”
Contact Michael Osipoff at 648-3137 or [email protected]
Wrestling Gear
