Orland Park's Hayes Earns All-America Wrestling Honors At UVA

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA —Sandburg High grad Louie Hayes, now a redshirt senior at University of Virginia, earned All-America honors for his performance at this past weekend's NCAA Wrestling Championships in St. Louis. The 133-pound Hayes is the 17th All-American in program history.

The All-America distinction was achieved when Hayes pinned Cal State Bakersfield's Chance Rich in a consolation match on Friday night.

"Louie has set an example for what our guys should be," Virginia coach Steve Garland said about Hayes. "He is in the master’s program in the Comm school, is a great student and one of the hardest workers you will ever find. He is coachable, mentally tough and competes as hard as he can. I can’t say enough good things about him and I am thankful I got to coach him.”

Hayes entered the championships as the No. 10 seed in the 133-pound division, and ended up going 3-3 on the weekend. He opened the competition with a 5-2 win over Minnesota's Boo Dryden and a 6-4 triumph over Illinois' Lucas Byrd, before falling 4-1 to Penn State's No. 2 seed Roman Bravo-Young in the quarterfinal.

The consolation bracket started with the pin of Rich, before Hayes fell 8-4 to Arizona State's Michael McGee and 11-3 to Northwestern's Chris Cannon, the latter in the seventh-place match.

This was the third time Hayes has qualified for the NCAA Championships. He also reached the quarterfinals in the 125-pound division as a redshirt freshman in 2018.

As a high school senior at Sandburg, Hayes was the IHSA state champion in the 113-pound division.