DumpTruck

Interestingly, despite all of the discussion about the weakness of the small school division, the finals of last year's State Duals was between two small school division teams (Union and Larue). Moreover, the top six teams at the state tournament last year are split evenly between the two divisions. 1. Campbell..................(Large School) 2. Union........................(Small School) 3. Trinity.......................(Large School) 4. Larue.......................(Small School) 5. Simon Kenton..........(Large School) 6. Johnson Central......(Small School) Based on this, I would say the top teams in each division are not so unequally weighted. True, there may be less depth in small school division, but I think that is the point. The theory goes, the more people in your school, generally (though not always) the easier it is to fill the weight classes. The more weight classes you have filled, generally (though not always) the more likely you are to be able to compete at dual meets. Finally, generally (though not always) success breeds success and if some small schools can win a few matches or make it to state duals, more kids might want to come out for the team and more schools might want to throw their hat in the ring for a wrestling team - potentially growing the sport in our fair Commonwealth. A larger, stronger wrestling program in the state of Kentucky would ultimately benefit everyone.

The tournament is still on

Who all is going to be there?

Does anybody have a schedule for Woodford County this season? The schedule on the website looks like one from a past year.

After getting beat in the first match, Preston actually wrested back pretty tough, finishing one match away from the medals as a freshman. He had two very nice come from behind pins and a tight win before finally losing to a tough wrestler in Honeycutt. I look for him to have a big year next season. As for the Jenkinson, any time and any way you beat a #1 seed as a #4 seed at the state tournament it is a big win and a big accomplishment. That happened a couple of time this year, and I think the fact that the first round getting more competitive is a sign that Kentucky wrestling is getting a little better and a little deeper.

Yeah, I believe you are right that it was an exhibition. Salyers was 5-0 on the day with his five matches in and just sort of came out of the stands and wrestled Hedges because there was not many 125s there. Zach was leading with under a minute to go and Hedges caught him in a throw. That is not to take anything away form Hedges who is a good wrester. What happened to him last year?

Here is some more information that might be useful in the rankings: Tates Creek beat JC in a dual 42-38 (at least that is what I am told). This is JC's first action of the year and so this is not a bad start for them, and I look for them to improve as the season goes on. Also, Ryan Harlow (JC) Upended the Tates Creek HWT ranked 3rd in the rankings in overtime 11-9...great match.

Intersting result from Johnson Central today: Robert Anchrom (sp) of JC beat Dakota Kincer of Letcher by a couple points. I don't think either of them are at the weight they are shooting for this season, but considering Robert isn't ranked and Kincer is sitting at #2 at 103 and is a very good wrestler, I thought this was noteworthy. I wasn't at the match I just heard the score. Someone correct me if I am wrong on this. Also, Tates Creek and Johnson Central will be wrestling later today, which is number 11 and 10 in the dual rankings. Should be a pretty good match. One more thing...where is this website where you can see everyone's weight and weight loss plan? Can anyone access it? Thanks for the help.

I'll miss good ole Beau Sanders. This is one of the few guys who was still around from when I wrestled. He is a great guy and seemed to know everyone in the arena this weekend. He also ended up with a great career as a two-time state finalist.

Amen. Let's move on. I can tell you one thing that Johnson County is probably excited about: Corey Spencer. Spencer in Johnson Central's second ever state champ and first since the early 1990's. Moreover, he did it in huge fashion beating one of the most accomplished wrestlers in state and national history! Johnson Central also had its highest team score finish ever with an 8th place finish at the state tournament. JC returns three all-staters for next year as well as the injured Zach Salyers and the rest of a young team. I hope this team continues to improve and the program continues to rise next year.

First, Congrats to my boy Corey Spencer. If you have followed his career at all, you will know that he has been tough as heck for his entire high school career. He lost to Carr by 2 in the semi's his Freshman year and then to Evans by 1 his Junior year. He also had to fight though a tough draw and several close matches against good wrestlers to get this far i n this tournament. After the tough breaks he finally broke through and got what he has worked hard for and what he deserves. Second, as everyone on here knows, it is nearly impossible to continue in any kind of action when your oppenent is riding your hips or just hanging onto you in a good front head lock. I wish Sullivan would have gone at him the whole match and we could have seen the talent both wrestlers have. The reality is that he didn't. He slowed the match down and tried to contain Corey by sitting on the hips and failing to use his front headlock. Corey showed a lot of guts and escaped when he had to and won the match. Spencer had a little more poise tonignt than one of the most poised wrestlers in state history. Third, Coach Sullivan is a class act. I have never seen anything more classy than when he come over after the match and hugged Corey and told him how happy he was for him. I don't know if he reads these things or not, but I tried to find him after the match to tell him how awsome that was. I also thought Travis handled himself with class, too. Great career. Congrats Corey or a huge win!

Let me tell you first that I am biased. I am an old wrestler from Johnson Central and though I am in college now, I try to stay up on the program. I will next say that I am really proud of the strides that the program has made. I was on our first middle school team and to think that we were state runner-ups makes me and the community very proud. I have worked with a lot of those young kids, and they are nothing but hard working and gracious. I have also spoken to the middle school coaches and I assure you that they didn't want to cause a problem...instead, their intent was to make sure that their kids got what they deserved. As I have mentioned before, addressing problems and making sure you are compliant to the rules is best for everyone. Could the situation been handled better. Sure. However, I think in a moment of honest reflection, everyone here can say that if they thought that their team had legitimately won the state championship, but an error cost them the title, then they would persue correction of the error. Now it appears that all of that is over and we can all move on to try it again next year. Finally, I want to make sure no one gets the wrong impression. Please don't paint Johnson County or the Johnson Central wrestling team with a broad brush. I think Johnson County is a great place with tremendous people. Johnson County Schools is one of the top school systems in the state in terms of academics and their wrestling program is on the rise as well. I would encourage the future posters on this thread to criticize the handling of the situations rather than the entire school, county, or individual wrestlers who had nothing to do with it.

Wow! This is a huge difference. If those point differentials hold true then it impacts which team is the state champion. I am sure that if the scorers were reversed to increase the team score it was by mistake of the Larue County coaches or the tournament officials as this is a clear violation of the scoring rules. The President should take a good luck at this to correct the error if one exists. Larue County has always been such gracious hosts and Central Hardin has always been a tremendous location for the tournament, but running the tournament should not give them an advantage. If JCMS followed correct procedure and an error is found in scorers for Larue County, the error must be corrected to uphold the integrity of the competition in the future. Middle School wrestling in KY has moved the state forward by leaps, but a failure to enforce rules and procedure could set us back again. I will be interested to see an official ruling on this one. Keep us posted

Here are the results from the 8th Region Team Wayne Scheldon Clark Johnson Central 103 Troxell (WC) Carr (JC) Kincer (LCC) Corey (PCC) 112 Sullivan (WC) -> Dec. over Spencer 3-2 Spencer (JC) Ritchie (LC) Maynard (SC) 119 Daniels (WC) Caddell (Whitley) Bartram (Ashland) Ankrom (JC) *Salyers JC didn't wrestle with a torn meniscus 125 Vinsant (WC) Evans (Whit) Feltner (PCC) Upchurch (MC) 130 Jude (JC) Dodd (WC) Back (LCC) Fuller (Ashland) 135 Slone (SC) MOW Caddell (Whit) Sammons (MC) Caudill (JC) 140 Grim (JC) Rigsby (Ashland) Smith (WC) Ray (SC) 145 Freeman (JC) Kennedy (WC) Delong (SC) Petrella (Ash) 152 Frazier (Law Co.) Shoopman (MC) Marcum (SC) Sullivan (WC) 160 Stepp (SC) Fisher (LCC) Meek (JC) Sloan (WC) 171 Stafford (SC) Floyd (WC) Ball (MC) Preston (JC) 189 Kelly (SC) Dominguez (WC) Kazee (Law Co.) Perkins (Whit) 215 Dials (SC) Roe (MC) Pace (WC) Holbrook (Ash) 285 Bell (WC) Chaffins (SC) Staten (MC) Cantrell (JC)

I don't think this ended up being an easy tournament. For example, I just looked on WV Mat and Corey Spencer pinned the #1 ranked wrestler in WV AA/A in the finals, beat the WV AAA #2 ranked wrestler 9-3 in the semis, and the AAA #3 and #5 ranked wrestlers were also at the tournament placing lower than Spencer. From the results and these ranking (granted I wasn't there) it looks like this was a pretty tough tournament after all and that the Kentucky wrestlers faired pretty well.