Teemer earns All-American honors

The first high school wrestler in Long Island history to capture five New York State championships has continued his extraordinary success at the next level.

Long Beach’s Jacori Teemer, a redshirt freshman at Arizona State University, earned All-American honors while helping the Sun Devils finished ranked No. 6 in the country. He won his final eight matches, including the Pac-12 Conference’s 157-pound title on March 7.

Teemer, who compiled a record of 17-5, earned the No. 9 seed in the NCAA championships, which were canceled due to Covid-19. He was the Pac-12 Wrestler of the Week on Feb. 12 and Feb. 26, becoming the first ASU wrestler to win the honor twice in one season.

“About halfway through the season I started cracking down on my routine and weight control,” said Teemer, a 2018 Long Beach graduate who won 202 matches for the Marines. “Once that was settled I started winning a lot,” he added.

Teemer knocked off three Top 25 opponents – No. 8 Josh Humphreys of Lehigh, No. 12 Jarret Jacques of Missouri, and No. 24 Austin Headlee of North Carolina. “The win at Missouri was big for me,” Teemer said. “That got the ball rolling.”

The decisions over Humphries and Headlee came back-to-back over a three-day span in February. On Feb. 21, Teemer pulled off a go-ahead reversal in the final 10 seconds of the match to secure an 8-6 decision over Humphreys. He followed that upset two days later in similar fashion as he used a reversal in overtime to beat Headlee, 3-2.

“Jacori had a great season, particularly at the end of the year, and was in position to win a national title in March,” ASU head coach Zeke Jones said of Teemer, who recorded his first collegiate pin Jan. 17 over Oregon State’s Michael Murphy in only 42 seconds. “Although he didn't get a chance to do that, he was named a freshman NCAA All American which is very rare to do,” Jones added. “I'm proud of him but really the best is yet to come.”

The Sun Devils defeated seven ranked teams during the dual meet season – No. 1 Penn State, No. 8 North Carolina, No. 11 Iowa State, No. 11 Stanford, No. 20 Missouri, No. 20 Virginia and No. 23 Purdue. The victory over Penn State snapped a 60-match winning streak by the Nittany Lions, who lost for the first time since 2015.