Unranked Lucas Anderson’s winning record vs. ranked 190-pound wrestlers and his eighth-place finish at state leave no question as to the identity of Indiana’s most underrated wrestler

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The 112 best high school wrestlers in the state of Indiana stood on the medal stand, lowered their necks, and received their hardware Saturday night at Gainbridge Coliseum.
The names of 111 of the 112 can be found in Indianamat.com’s final regular season top 30 rankings in each of the 14 weight divisions, released Jan. 30.
That tells you two things: First, Indianamat.com does an excellent job of ranking wrestlers. Second, Chesterton senior Lucas Anderson was the most underrated wrestler in the state of Indiana by virtue of being the only one to place at state whose name didn’t appear in the rankings.
The other seven wrestlers on the 190 medal stand appeared in Indianamat.com’s top eight.
Many of the wrestlers in the rankings finished within a few spots of their rankings. Besides unranked Anderson, the wrestler wearing a medal Saturday night who had the lowest regular season ranking was Zionsville’s Andrew Elmore, the eighth-place finisher at 113 pounds.
Switching from 175 pounds to 190 pounds starting with the Al Smith Invitational, Anderson didn’t make it to the second day in that prestigious tournament. He finished third at the DAC Championships, losing a semifinal by a point to Valparaiso’s Ben Fedorchak and then didn’t face a ranked wrestler in Chesterton’s final two dual meets before the postseason.
By the time he won the LaPorte sectional, pinning Fedorchak with six seconds remaining, the final rankings had already been released. Even if the rankings had been active and the sectional championship had vaulted him into them, he might have fallen back out after finishing third at the Crown Point regional, losing a major decision, 12-3, to Lowell’s Cayden Yuran in a semifinal match.
Just as he had done with Fedorchak, Anderson avenged his loss to Yuran by defeating him 10-9 to place first at the East Chicago semistate to help his state seeding.
Oh well, Anderson would rather go unranked and make it to the medal stand than get ranked and not make it to state, as was the case for 15 ranked wrestlers at 190.
Anderson fell one win shy of making it to state as a sophomore and again as a junior, losing by technical fall in the ticket round at semi-state both years.
He summed up the experience of wrestling at state, as opposed to watching from the stands, as “surreal.”
“From the stands it looks so much bigger,” he said. “But being on the mat it’s so condensed.”
He explained how guaranteeing himself a place on the medal stand by winning his match Friday afternoon vs. No. 18 Spencer Fain of Floyd Central by major decision, 20-6, made him feel.
“I couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the day,” he said. “I’d be talking to my friends and I would randomly say, ‘I’m so happy. I’m so happy.’”
He had three chances to move up from eighth on Saturday and didn’t win any of them, which did not strip him of the unofficial title of the state’s most underrated wrestler.
For the year, Anderson had 15 matches against wrestlers from the final Indianamat top 30 and went 8-7, 0-4 vs. top 8 wrestlers and 8-3 vs. others in the rankings.
Vs. No. 3 Kyle Harden (Cathedral) 0-1.
Vs. No. 4 Colin McMahon (Columbus East): 0-1.
Vs. No. 6 Brody Wingate (East Central): 0-1.
Vs. No. 8 Xavier Palacios (Bellmont): 0-1.
Vs. No. 13 Cayden Yuran (Lowell): 1-1.
Vs. No. 15 Ben Fedorchak (Valparaiso): 2-1.
Vs. No. 16 Calvin Stewart (Crown Point): 2-0 (7-0 for his career).
Vs. No. 18 Spencer Fain (Floyd Central): 1-0.
Vs. No. 24 Christopher Tietz-Herrera (Portage): 0-1.
Vs. No. 26 Wesaal Wardak (Munster): 1-0.
Vs. No. 30 Tramel Quadhamer (Logansport): 1-0.