Charger Coach

Indiana's semi-state brackets are already posted because their fields are already set based on the results of last week's regionals. There are some brackets not set for regionals in Kentucky because some regions haven't even had their seeding meetings yet. Region 3 doesn't have their meeting until Friday night. I agree results need to be posted more regularly. However, there are over 3 times more schools that have wrestling in Indiana than Kentucky. Check their website that is equivolent to Kentuckywrestling.com and you'll see that proportionately, the results are posted about as regularly as this site. In Indiana, their coaches' association does the rankings. In Kentucky, it's simply a fan of wrestling who takes the initiative, not our coaches' association. They use his rankings. It seems we use region reps for everything else, why not use a region rep to help post or give results for their region? Simply have the coaches in each region e-mail their results to the region rep whom they designate (doesn't have to be the same rep for everything else) and have that person forward them on. That might help some. I'm sure Ranger gets conflicting results all the time. One source for each region might help eliminate some of that confusion which would make it easier for him to decipher those results and rank the kids accordingly. It might help him be able to post rankings more often as well. That's my two cents anyway.

JJ definitely hit a couple of nice blast doubles on Maupin and eventually finished him off. However, I do seem to remember that the momentum in that match was changing twice before time was stopped twice for a "breather" and swinging in Maupin's favor. I think when / if the two get to wrestle this year, it will be much closer than people are thinking.

There were some kids who didn't wrestle of note. I don't know the whole list, but I do know Rusch didn't wrestle, Rupp didn't wrestle and Fahey didn't wrestle. I'm sure there were others and I'll have to look at the brackets but those are a few off the top of my head.

WHS98, that's kind of my point. If you have a kid who is giving up 55-60 lbs, but he weighs around 225-230 most are going to say big deal, he's a big kid so he can take it. But that little bitty guy who is only 86 lbs, it's not fair he has to give up as much weight as he does when proportionately it's the same gap! I've actually had a couple of kids in our school who wanted to come out for wrestling, but haven't because they weigh too much to wrestle and don't want to come out, bust their tail if they can't compete in anything but practice. Why not knock down the HWT max a little to let's say 270 and then add a weight class for kids from 270-310 or so and make that a super HWT class and also a non-scoring class much like the scenario proposed here? We're talking about adding another lower weight class to help little Johnnie's confidence essentially so he can compete so let's add the super HWT to help big Johnnie's health issues. He comes out, loses a few pounds and eventually gets below that 270 mark and compete for points for the team. What's the real reason we don't do that? It's hard to find big boys in general, that's why so why would we split up the HWT class and essentially make it twice as hard to find kids? Well, it's hard to find kids below the 106 mark so why compound your problem by splitting that division down even further? My vote would be no on the original proposal, but then again, I don't like the new weight classes implemented this year either, but I still have to abide by it. Tell little Johnnie to knock down a couple of McDonald's value meals and chug a gallon of water without taking a pee before each weigh-in. That'll help narrow the huge weight gap, lol.

I'd vote no and I have a 106 that is a freshmen and only weighs 86 lbs. I think it's ironic that we worry about the 103 weight class from last year being 106 now and due to that change there might have been / were more injuries but we really don't address the fact that 215 was only bumped up 5 lbs to 220 so the gap between 220 and HWT is still huge. We worry about a kid giving up 15-20 lbs but not so much for a kid who might be giving up 55-60 lbs!

The teams I've coached have been going to this tourney for 6 or 7 years now and it seems like most teams do bring their varsity. I think I can remember a couple of years where Trinity has brought their JV. For the most part, I've talked to some coaches at this tourney of what you would consider the better programs there and in some cases, they leave it up to their wrestlers as to whether they compete or not since it's the week before regionals and some may need the short rest from a long season before that last push. I think last year Oldham County had some varsity kids competing, but it was mostly JV and Eastern did the same thing. I don't remember Trinity being there last year, but the year before that, their varsity (for the most part) competed. Three years ago, again I seem to remember it was mostly their JV with a few varsity kids.

Like a lot of rules, it's black and white but the application is a bit of a gray area and up to the opinion of the official. I usually don't say much about that particular rule being discussed. To me, if the wrestler who is now in a somewhat defensive postion were to raise his hands off the mat and said action would cause him to fall forward, then that's a takedown as there is enough pressure on his hands at that point that he needs it for balance. If the wrestler can raise his hands off the mat and still stay balanced and not fall forward, then IMO no takedown should be awarded. But again, it's up to the opinion and discretion of the official and you can't really argue that.

I would agree each situation is different. I know that if a HWT had come to me two weeks ago and asked to join the team I would've taken him in a second since we don't have one.

The split would be based on total school enrollment. I think the last proposal I saw had each class split into 6 sectionals per class and each sectional had 7 or 8 teams. You can't think Region 1 only has X smalls schools and Region 2 only has X smalls schools, etc. Basically, given the cutoff point which as Jacketcoach stated was just over 1,000 and break the schools into Big School / Small School divisions. Map the small schools and break them into 6 sectionals with an even number of teams in each sectional. One sectional may have 8 teams and another may have 7 but they were pretty close to even. There definitely wasn't a huge imbalance like some of the Regions for individual state have. Then, do the same for the Big School division. Like I stated previously, there will be positives and negatives from this. One of the positives I can think of is take schools like Moore and Central in Louisville for instance. They're in Region 4 with Trinity and St. X. Moore and Central have great coaches and pretty decent wrestlers. Overall, they have pretty nice programs, but their chances of going to state duals isn't great from year to year under the current format. Under this format, both of those schools would now be in a small school sectional and would have a good chance to go to state duals. Now for some of the negatives, I think travel will increase which I'm sure for some of the schools out there, that's hard to believe considering what they travel now. Also, and yes I can see this in the Small School division, you may run across some cases where if a team has two or three good wrestlers and can simply field a full team or close to it, they'd qualify for state duals because a lot of the teams in their sectional might start a dual down 18, 24 maybe even 30 points due to not being able to field full teams. I guess we'll see how it all turns out in a couple of years.

I'll wait until the good ol' random draw before I make any predictions, lol.

Dagger, Next year with the split, I would not argue your point at all. Splitting Union and Larue one way and putting Trinity, Campbell Co, etc the other way would dilute your product. I was speaking more for this year. I don't think the overall competition level would have been much of a drop if any from the GIT and Ryle still elected not to come even though they qualified.

Didn't Ryle go to the GIT this weekend which is way up by Cleveland? I'm assuming that wasn't cheap and they probably stayed in a hotel the night before, but not for sure. I know there were a couple of good Ohio schools there like Wadsworth, but I would say Ryle would have seen some decent competition this weekend at the state duals as well. The competition overall might not have been quite as good (tough to say really), but I don't think it would have been way down. Anyway, back on topic, to me personally, it doesn't matter if the competition goes way down or not, this is a chance for a true team state title so I feel like you should go if you qualify. It would be a lot harder to say no if the state duals were emphasized more.

North Hardin, Franklin County, Christian County, Moore, University Heights, North Oldham, Central High, Doss, Dixie Heights, Holy Cross, Fort Knox, South Oldham, Boone County, Bullitt East, Oldham County, Eastern, Bullitt Central, Iroquois High School, PRP, McCreary Central & Trinity.

Individual state should never think about going to a class system until the sport grows further. We simply don't have enough teams in the state to support such a measure. I would rather see it go back to the district, regional, state format before that happens. However, the split to a big school / small school dual championship will have both its negatives and positives and is feasible. I personally think there are more negatives especially in the small school division. I guess we'll never really know for sure until after the 2 year trial period. If it's growth and participation we're after, then I think as a state, we're on the right track. Simply look at the high school and youth programs that have been added in the last five years or so. I know we've lost some programs, but the gains have fair outweighed that. I know of at least a few schools that are wanting or willing to start a wrestling program, but they simply don't have anybody to run them. We always seem to want to emphasize participation at the wrestler level, but what about the coaching level? I think that is just as important if not more important in many aspects.

Exactly!!! It's the overall body of work from the results Ranger gets. His rankings aren't based on just one head-to-head match. Ranger has been doing this favor for the Kentucky wrestling community for quite a while and I can say that in the end every year, his rankings are usually pretty darn close to how the state tourney shakes out.

Well if the semifinals start @ 2 and the finals start @ 6, I think 4 hours is enough of a break, lol. This tournament always runs behind, but Coach Smith always seems to get every "extra" into the field so as a coach, I don't mind since every one of my kids get to wrestle and that's the reason it runs behind. Same goes for the Mustang Classic @ North Oldham.

Southern beat Meade Co. I'm not for sure of the score, but I believe it was by about 20.

I agree, not really a good idea overall. Wrestlers who make the individual tournament but their teams don't make the duals, would have a major advantage. They would only have to make weight two days, not three plus they would ge a one pound allowance on the 1st weigh-in since the teams who are competing at state duals would be doing competitions on consecutive days.

You left off Nickel and Back for Lindsey Wilson. Bradbury is having / did have Tommy John surgery. Josh Johnson and Harrison Courtney also out with injury for Lindsey although I don't know the specifics for either.

Yeah, his brother Matthew (120) is pretty decent as well. Should be a good one if he and Crawley meet somewhere along the way.

I have tremendous respect for both coaches. They may have different styles but it works for their teams / wrestlers as shown by their past and recent success. Super S1, I've learned over time that there are two sides to every story and even though those stories are more than likely on opposite ends of the spectrum, the truth is more often than not somewhere in between. I hope your sons get to wrestle again soon whether it be in KY, OH or wherever. It's tough to keep the #1 ranking as the top freshman in the country if indeed you don't wrestle. I'd also appreciate it if you would refrain from calling KY a second rate wrestling state. No, we aren't OH or what you're use to, but there are some good coaches in this state who work very hard to teach their kids not only how to be a better wrestler but also how to be a better individual in general. They nor the wrestlers / kids who compete in this state deserve to be called second rate no matter how upset you may be with certain coaches or a certain school.

Clarksville Providence placed 4th?

Central, Male, Iroquois, Eastern, J-town, North Oldham, Holy Cross, Doss, DeSales, Bullitt East, Ft Knox, St. X (JV), Fern Creek, Grissom AL, Woodford County & Western Grissom is a very tough team out of Alabama. I believe they were state runner-ups in their division last year. Their 103 & 160 from last year (not sure what weight they will be this year) are brothers and really tough wrestlers. I know they both return this year. Their 189 from last year (again don't know what weight this year) was a state champ and they had multiple other kids on their roster who were state placers last year and return this year. I'm looking forward to some of the possible matchups we will get to see at this tournament with Kentucky kids like Omar Jarvis, Chase Rusch, etc against some of these Grissom kids.

Bullitt East will also be at the Derby City Classic

Agreed Mark Hall is a great kid. Unfortunately, to some, it was the circumstances behind his situation rather than the person himself that some people disliked which was a shame. I never knew the kid to act with anything but class. As far as seeing brothers ranked top 3 in their weight class in Kentucky, I've seen it numerous times albeit in separate years. I've seen it more than a few times in the same year as well (Please see Richard and Will Starks 2005-06 for starters) so it's not new or unprecedented. As far as the fool comment, it was never intended to "doubt" someone's wrestling intelligence or acumen, but rather the way they carry themselves. Believe it or not, some of us Kentucky hilljacks do know a few things about wrestling as well. I'm assuming the above post was made by one of the little Meyers. If not, I apologize but if so, I wish you nothing but the best this year. I hope that you achieve all that you set out to do. I hope that you represent yourself, your family, your school and state well which by the way includes humility and sportsmanship not just results on the mat. On a side note, congrats to John Fahy on his committment to the University of Illinois. It was definitely well deserved and earned.