bluegrassbrawler

Martin County (Sheldon Clark) has had many many state champs: josh Muncy, Dan Muncy, Billy Clark, Xavier manning, josh Preece, josh Stepp, Derek mollett, John dials, Jeremy Rhodes, Bruce stepp, chris Goss, and a few more Stepp bothers. Pike central has had a few placers in the past. I believe that Justin Maynard was their first placer in the early 2000s.

Sheldon Clark/Martin County has always had an excellent hospitality room, going all the way back to the district 8 and AMVETS tournament days.

that was a very exciting match - could have gone either way! You can definitely see Carr's greco technique/experience coming through though.

what was the score of the Union Co - Johnson Central match?

any score updates?

When Woodford was the team to beat in the 90s and 00s they were rivals with every team. While Union has replaced Woodford in terms of dominance, I do not think the rest of the state feels the same about both these teams. Woodford was the ultimate heel of high school wrestling. They were good, and they knew it, and the blonde hair was just enough to take it over the edge. The entire Frankfort Civic center would be cheering against the Woodford kids. If a Woodford wrestler lost the place would erupt. If Woodford did something to excite the crowd you would hear booing from every corner of the arena. Call is poor sportsmanship on the crowd's part, but Woodford really embraced that roll and ran with it. I feel like the rivalries with Union are more on a friendly level than an adversarial one when comparing these two teams from different times. I feel like some of the changes by the KHSAA to KY wrestling has had an influence on team rivalries. The move from the Frankfort civic center, which has been discussed ad nauseum by the old school guys, changed the way the crowd got into it the matches and the drama that happen on and around the mat. Enough has been said about the topic of the civic center, so I will move on. Another factor in my opinion was doing away with the district-region-state format. As mentioned above this post, some regional finals would almost be a dual between just two of the participating teams. The old Region 4 (district 7 and 8) was pretty much the Lexington area school against eastern Kentucky school. Many of the schools would never see each other until regionals. You'd get Woodford, Sheldon Clark, and Wayne County all in an 8 man bracket tournament and it was a guarantee that a lot if not a majority of the matchups would be between these school. There were so many memorable rivalries that would not only meet up in the regional finals but potentially in the state finals. Michael Jackson vs William Farrington, Chris Floyd vs Joey Stepp, Chris Sanders vs anybody, just to name a few. So many personalities, attitudes, backgrounds, and story lines... I am getting nostalgic here!

Years ago in West Virginia there were the Bonecutter brothers of Point Pleasant. I always thought that was an awesome last name for wrestling. I believe one of them may be the head wrestling coach there now. Another one that I recall from years ago was Matt Dragon from PA. The ultimate wrestling name however would have to belong to former Detroit Lions and UK football player, and Hopkinsville High School Alum, Artose Pinner. Of all the last names a wrestler could have "Pinner" would have to be the best. I am not sure if he was a member of Hopkinsville's wrestling team or not but I do know that he did have some close family ties to the program.

How did the Ryle vs Union match up go?

It looked to me as if the final’s crowd was a little thinner than last year.

Letcher County had state Placer in the mid 2000s. Dakota Kincer. I was unaware of Boyle County or trigg county having a state champion or finalist. That was before my time!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there seemed to be a lot of first time occurrences at this year’s state tournament. Boyle County had a state champ, pikeville had its first placer. Was this trigg country and grant county’s first finalist? What were some other firsts?

Blanton did what he had to do to win. He scored off a great counter in the 1st period and nearly had two other takedowns. The ankle pick called out of bounds in the 1st period and the pancake in the 3rd, also ruled out of bounds, should have been awarded 2 points. I think that most can agree that these should have been takedowns. Regardless, Blanton did attempt to, and ultimately succeeded in, milking a 3 point lead. Andreoni did little in the match to show that he was the aggressor and scored only on escapes and points awarded to him through stalling calls. Blanton was lucky that he wasn't hit more for stalling again in the closing seconds of the match but Andreoni did next to nothing offensively to win. Both are young, talented, and will likely meet up again in the future. Great job, and congrats to both wrestlers on a successful season.

George King was very impressive. Nobody made it out of the first period against him!

I was just stating that Burroughs was a NHSCA senior national champ. That is a great accomplishment. That's the pinnacle of Highschool wrestling. I never said he was the best Highschool wrestler of all time.

Burroughs won NHSCA senior nationals. That is a high school star.