Val T.
- Apr 5
- 4 min read

All-RTC wrestling: State placers Brant, Brady Beck are Co-Wrestlers of the Year

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Brady Beck Brant Beck

Rochester’s Brant Beck and Brady Beck are brothers, but they have charted their own separate courses of excellence in wrestling.

Brant Beck is all about relentless energy, movement and constant aggression. Brady Beck is all about positioning, leverage and resourcefulness.

Wrestling against the giants of the sport at the state finals in Evansville in February, they more than held their own. Brant was third at 165 pounds, and Brady was fifth at heavyweight.

In a year in which Rochester once again dominated the competition among area teams, the two Becks are the RTC Co-Wrestlers of the Year.

They also headline the All-RTC wrestling team, which features 10 Zebras on the first team and two others who made honorable mention.

As we have every year since 2021, we will list a first-team wrestler and an honorable mention wrestler at each weight class.

We thank all the area coaches for communicating results with us as well as their insights on their teams. We also rely on websites like IndianaMat.com and trackwrestling.com. They are tremendous resources, and we use them quite often.

We place extra emphasis on conference tournament and state tournament results. Often times, wrestlers will float between weight classes in those early-season duals in order to get good competition, but it’s the conference and postseason tournaments in which wrestlers pick a weight class and stick to it.

This list is ours and ours alone, and we take full responsibility.

Top Left: Alex Deming Top Center: DJ Basham Top Right: Grant Holloway Bottom Left: Declan Gard Bottom Right: Ethan Amezquita

First team

106 – Grant Holloway (Rochester) – Imagine you are trying to acquaint yourself with high school wrestling as a freshman. Then imagine needing knee surgery in the middle of the season. Then imagine overcoming all of it to make the state finals. If Holloway gets physically stronger and stays healthy, he has a chance at a special career. Our honorable mention pick is Jackson Robbins, though Max Harsh also has a promising future.
113 – Kodiak Hillen (Tippecanoe Valley) – Hillen qualified for regionals, where his season ended against an eventual state placer in Jalen Sawyer-May from Kokomo. Hillen won 18 matches as a freshman.
120 – Charles Cottrell (Winamac) – Cottrell was wrestling his best by the end of the season, and he wound up winning the Hoosier North title. He pinned Gage Minniear at conference, which tilts our choice in his favor.
126 – Layne Horn (Rochester) – Horn is a businesslike technician on the mat and just a master from the top position. Anybody who breaks a record of Damon Hummel’s – specifically, he broke Hummel’s single-season record for pins – is a special wrestler. So is being a two-time state qualifier as a sophomore.
132 – D.J. Basham (Rochester) – There was a nice little rivalry between Caston’s Ashton Bowyer and Winamac’s Asher Jones for our honorable mention spot, but the best 132-pounder in the area was Basham, who lost weight, got stronger and came out of nowhere to win the Penn regional.
138 – Willis Dennis (Winamac) – Dennis was the only area wrestler who made it to semistate at this weight class. He had good length that made it hard to get inside him and made for a strong defense.
144 – Eli Guffey (Pioneer) – This was one of the most competitive weight classes in our area, but our pick is Guffey, an athletic, aggressive wrestler who won the Hoosier North title. Kale Shotts, Austin Attinger and Landen Rigney all made fine years as well.
150 – Wyatt Davis (Rochester) – Davis got within one win of a state finals even though he battled injury and illness much of the year. Davis is a mix of brains and braun on the mat and is primed for a great senior year.
157 – Ethan Amezquita (Rochester) – Amezquita’s matches were rollercoaster rides with frequent changes in momentum, but he won 22 matches, and he pinned D.J, Depke at the sectional, so he’s our choice.
165 – Brant Beck (Rochester) (Co-Wrestler of the Year) – Brant Beck lost just twice all season – to the wrestler who won the state title and to the wrestler who finished fourth. He is always scoring points and putting pressure on his opponents.
175 – Declan Gard (Rochester) – In 2023, Gard did not advance to the regional. In 2024, he moved up 30 pounds in weight and won 35 matches and a sectional title before his season ended at semistate. His style is more methodical as compared to Brant Beck or Layne Horn’s explosiveness, but it’s very effective.
190 – Colin Weiand (Rochester) – Weiand was sturdy and hard to move at 190 pounds, and he developed more technique, and he got within one win of the state finals for the second straight year. He’s truly a product of Rochester’s wrestling culture.
215 – Alex Deming (Rochester) – Deming made state for the third straight year before a heartbreaking loss to Jackson Weingart of Indianapolis Cathedral in the first round of the state finals. Before that, he won conference, sectional and regional titles. Always a strong defensive wrestler and a stud from the bottom position, he developed a greater variety of ways to score as his career progressed.
HWT – Brady Beck (Rochester) (Co-Wrestler of the Year) – Beck went 46-2 on the season. His losses were to Center Grove’s Nate Johnson, who won state, and Crown Point’s Paul Clark, who was ranked No. 1, per IndianaMat.com, for pretty much the entire season. Both losses were in overtime. His defensive instincts were so good that it took an elite wrestler to score off him.