Hagerstown’s Aaron Brooks wins U.S. Open, will face Olympic champ next
In 2021, Aaron Brooks, of Hagerstown, went to the Tokyo Summer Olympics to serve as a training and workout partner for American David Taylor, who left with a gold medal.
Now, the two wrestlers are ready to face each other for real, with a spot on the 2023 U.S. World Team at 86 kilograms (189.6 pounds) in men’s freestyle on the line.
By winning the U.S. Open title at 86 kilograms on Friday night in Las Vegas, Brooks, a 2018 North Hagerstown graduate, earned the right to face Taylor in Final X — a best-of-3 showdown on June 10 in Newark, N.J.
In the U.S. Open finals, Brooks, the No. 3 seed, furiously rallied to beat No. 1 Zahid Valencia 10-6, scoring 10 unanswered points in the final 1:45 of the match after trailing 6-0.
Brooks, who won his third straight NCAA title for Penn State on March 18, began the U.S. Open on a tear Thursday. Competing for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club, he defeated Dylan Fishback 10-0, Hudson Stewart 9-0 and Owen Webster 11-0, before topping No. 2 seed Mark Hall, his former Penn State teammate, 6-1 in the semifinals Thursday night.
That set up his third career freestyle match with Valencia, the former Arizona State star, who defeated Brooks 6-0 in the semifinals at U.S. Senior Nationals in 2019 and then 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021.
On Friday night, Valencia was looking to improve to 3-0 against Brooks as he shot to the early lead, hitting a four-point move 32 seconds into the match. The score was 6-0 before Brooks took over late, showing a superior level of fitness and fire.
The winner of the Brooks-Taylor showdown in June will represent the U.S. at the world championships in Serbia in September.
After winning Olympic gold in 2021, Taylor won a title at the world championships last year in Belgrade.
Brooks owns two age-group world medals, the Cadet (17-and-under) gold he won in 2017 in Greece and the Junior (20-and-under) silver he earned in 2018 in Slovakia.
Brooks, who was a four-time Maryland 4A-3A state champion for North Hagerstown, has one season of NCAA eligibility left at Penn State.
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This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Hagerstown’s Aaron Brooks wins U.S. Open, will face Olympic champ next
