After being released from their commitments to the Oklahoma wrestling program, Hartley’s Dylan Newsome and Olentangy Liberty’s Dylan Russo have found new college homes.
Newsome will wrestle at Virginia and Russo has committed to Wisconsin.
The longtime friends committed to Oklahoma last spring to compete for coach Lou Rosselli, a former assistant at Ohio State whose son, Jaxson, wrestles at Liberty. After Rosselli stepped down in April, both wrestlers filed paperwork asking the school to release them from their letters of intent, and Oklahoma granted their requests.
“We’ve been family friends with coach Rosselli for years,” Russo said. “I’m really close with his son, Jaxson. People started leaving (Oklahoma) and decommitting. It was like a snowball thing.”
Newsome said he had planned a visit to Virginia before committing to Oklahoma.
“It wasn’t a tough decision because when I committed to Oklahoma, I had a visit scheduled for Virginia, so we canceled that,” Newsome said. “It’s nice because it came back around. They called me when they found out I asked for my release. The campus is beautiful. They have really good coaches and really good teammates. It’s a great academic school and a school of faith. That was big for me. It made it a real easy decision.”
Russo selected Wisconsin after receiving a home visit from coaches and also visiting the campus.
Each concluded his high school career this past season by winning a state title.
Newsome won a Division II championship at 175 pounds — the first state title in Hartley program history — despite competing with a left knee injury.
“I tore (the MCL) back in February, and I had surgery a little over a month ago because the state tournament was coming up and I wanted to finish the season,” Newsome said. “We didn’t tell anyone. We kept it down low and tried to finish it out. It hurt a lot, but I put a brace on it and I was able to change my wrestling style a little bit.”
Newsome finished third at 165 in 2022 and second at 170 in 2021.
Russo captured his second consecutive Division I state title at 215 after winning at 220 in 2021.
Friends since childhood, Newsome and Russo both started building their passion for the sport at Team Miron Wrestling in Dublin.
They had been hoping to compete together in college.
“We had a really good situation at OU — (a) once in a lifetime type of thing — but it’s worked out for each other,” Russo said. “I know he loves UVA and I love Wisconsin. It kind of stinks that we’re not going to be with each other, but we’ll still be successful and we’ll still cheer each other on.”
“It was really hard because it’s not common that you get to go to school with your best friend and especially wrestle together,” Newsome said. “It stunk, but once everything happened with Oklahoma, we knew it was going to be hard for us to end up at the same school.”
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