Jaxon Smith’s Sensational Summer Spurring Big Season For Him And Unbeaten Terps

As FloWrestling’s No. 72 overall recruit in the Class of 2021 and a key headliner of coach Alex Clemsen’s top-ten recruiting class that same year, Jaxon Smith was certainly a big name heading into his redshirt year at Maryland. However, after a massively successful summer on the international wrestling circuit, Smith has officially solidified himself as one of the top 197-pounders in the country. 

“I think it gave him a lot of confidence going into this year,” Clemsen said of Smith’s summer. “He competed at such a high level and really dominated domestically.”

Smith, now a redshirt freshman, kicked off his 2022 summer by winning the title at 92KG in the U-20 Freestyle bracket at the 2022 United States Marine Corps Open. He followed that up by notching a pair of victories over Silas Allred (Nebraska Wrestling Training Center) in his best-of-three finals to earn a spot on the U20 Freestyle World Team. 

“That was an awesome moment of realizing that I finally did it and that I accomplished this big goal I had of making the World Team,” Smith said. “I remember standing up and immediately hugging (assistant coach Nick Brascetta), hugging Clemsen and then finding (assistant coach Devin) Mellon right after the match. That was a really cool moment that I’ll remember for a long time.”

Before a stop in Bulgaria for the World Championships, Smith had one more accomplishment to fulfill in North America—winning the 92KG title at the 2022 Pan-Am Championship in Oaxtepec, Mexico, which he did so in dominant fashion across two matches. To that point in the summer, Smith was outscoring his opponents 54-2 in five bouts, along with a pin.

Heading into Worlds, Smith trained with the goal of earning a spot on the podium and of bringing home a medal. The Cartersville, GA native battled hard for two days in Bulgaria and earned himself a spot in the bronze match. Ultimately, Smith came up just short in that bout and left with a fifth-place finish.

“He was devastated afterwards, and I think that says a lot about how he looked at the whole opportunity,” Clemsen said. 

But though the sting was definitely there for a while, Smith looks back on the summer with nothing but fondness as he finished as the champion in three different tournaments as well as fifth-place in the world.

“It was definitely a really great experience for me to grow as a wrestler,” Smith said. “I was wrestling world class athletes around the world and got to train at an Olympic Training Center for two weeks. That definitely prepared me to wrestle this year against some of the best guys in the country.”

While Smith showed what he was made of on the mat, a lesser-known aspect of his summer success comes from the work he did back in College Park during those months—with nearly the entire Maryland wrestling team by his side. 

The guys had other options for how to spend some of those summer weeks, and, still, almost every single Terrapin wrestler chose to stick behind and help push Smith during those workouts.

“Training through the summer with our whole team was really important,” Smith said. “It really helped me prepare for the summer and I think it really helped our whole team going into this year.”

The latter part of that statement rings especially true for Clemsen and his coaching staff, especially with a talented, but largely inexperienced team heading into the 2022-23 campaign.

“It was huge for our team,” Clemsen said. “For a young program, there was a lot of purpose to our training, a lot of intensity to our training. For a young team to be laser-focused all summer to provide an environment for Jaxon to be able to thrive in was really impressive.”

The program wasn’t done supporting Smith when he departed for his various tournaments. 

The guys watched eagerly from back home, even when he was seven hours ahead of them in Bulgaria. And, if that wasn’t enough, Clemsen and Brascetta both accompanied their wrestler every step of the way, something that meant a great deal to Smith.

“No one else had two of their college coaches there in Bulgaria,” Smith recalled. “I definitely was the only one with both my head coach and assistant there. It showed how much they cared about me and how much they’re pouring into me everyday. It definitely meant the world.”

Equally as meaningful for Smith was the ability to showcase what Maryland wrestling entails on a national stage.

“It felt really good to be able to represent TEAM USA in those events, but it was also really cool to represent the University of Maryland at the same time and to be able to kinda put the country on notice about what we’re doing here at Maryland,” Smith said. 

And if heads weren’t turned about Maryland wrestling before, they certainly are now as the Terps are undefeated through five duals and ranked as high as No. 15 in major rankings polls. 

“This year’s been really awesome to be a part of,” Smith said. “You can see just being around this team compared to last year’s, there’s a different vibe around the team. We all expect to win—we have it written on the wall—and we all hold ourselves to that same standard. It’s really cool being able to compete with a bunch of guys who have the same goals in mind to be the best.”

Smith has been a headliner of the Terps’ impressive turnaround this season, with individual rankings as high as No. 10 and two wins over ranked opponents to his name, including a massive pin over Illinois’ eighth-ranked Zac Braunagel at the Tiger Style Invite. 

“I trained through the whole summer and then went right into the season, so I was prepared for a match like that, a moment like that,” Smith said of that win, which he considers one of the best of his career. “I think the result was an accumulation of all that work.” 

“I’m looking forward to more wins and moments like that,” he added. 

More big victories are certainly in the future for Smith—if you ask Clemsen and others around the Maryland program, the sky's the limit for what the redshirt freshman can accomplish as a Terp. 

“I think (Smith) expects to compete for a national championship now,” Clemsen said. “I think he always saw himself as an All-American threat, but now I think he sees himself as a true National Champion contender. And he absolutely should view himself that way.”