Over the Christmas holidays, The Conlin Gym was filled with spectators from near and far to watch high school wrestling teams compete during the 2017 Trey Culotta Invitational. This year, the Invitational expanded to 25 teams. The matches spanned a grueling two days of wrestling with every wrestler guaranteed a minimum of seven matches. Day one of the invitational consisted of four pools of six wrestlers. For day two, the top two finishers of each pool made it to a championship bracket.
Unique to this year’s tournament, there were five out of state teams participating from Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas. As for the Crusaders, the Brother Martin wrestling team placed 6 in the finals with 3 champions: Connor Hoffman (106 lbs.), Ethan Castex (113 lbs.) and Daniel Croy (126 lbs.). The Crusaders also had four 3rd place finishers, overall.
This year’s tournament director, Jim Casadaban ’79 stated “Overall, the individual competition this year was by far the strongest in the tournament’s history. The semis matches were just incredible with many close and exciting matches.”
Since its inception in 2000, the Trey Culotta Invitational has occupied a special place in the wrestling schedule for Southeast Louisiana. As a tournament that has sought out the best teams and the best wrestlers, the Trey Culotta Invitational has seen more than its fair share of great wrestling, exceptional champions and dramatic bouts. The tournament is special also for the fact that it is sponsored by the Trey Culotta Foundation. The generous donations from the foundation allow teams to enter and participate without having to pay an entry fee. It has always been the hope of Brother Martin High School and the Culotta family that each wrestler, spectator, or other person involved in the tournament will take away some of the spirit of Trey Culotta ’97 himself, a young man known as having the “heart of a lion.”
Trey’s life remains a shining example of triumph over adversity, dedication to a noble cause, and service to others, all admirable traits at the cornerstone of the philosophy of Brother Martin High School. It is also the hope of those who sponsor the tournament that young men who learn of Trey’s untimely passing will be reminded of the importance of acting responsibly about drinking, driving and protecting friends who might place themselves in harm’s way. It has been the privilege of Brother Martin High School to work with Dr. and Mrs. Culotta to sponsor the annual Trey Culotta Invitational Wrestling Tournament and to spread the word about the extraordinary young man in whose memory the tournament is named.
Our Brother Martin and wrestling community were fortunate to have Dr. Van and Mrs. Mimi Culotta, parents of belated Trey Culotta ’97, at the invitational to present medals and awards to the individual place finishers, team trophies, outstanding wrestler, Gavin Christ from Basile, and the Trey Culotta Outstanding Heavyweight, Jordan Campbell from East Ascension.
“It was a great experience wrestling in my third Trey Culotta tournament. It’s always a tough tournament, but there’s no better feeling than winning a team championship. I’m proud of all my teammates and the way we wrestled, and it’s always great to commemorate Trey Culotta’s life and to learn from him,” said Patrick Evans ’19.
Congratulations to our Crusaders for the championship title and to all of the teams who participated in this impactful and meaningful invitational for our Brother Martin community.
