ihawk

I pray every day the children I see once a week at the UK Children's Hospital could (but not necessarily would) spend the time worrying/talking about things like tattoos.

http://www.hawkcentral.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080127/HAWKS0110/801270320/1053/HAWKS

Heres the link I messed up if your interested :http://www.intermatwrestle.com/high_school/rankings/hsrank0708_01.aspx.

Very few wrestlers (in KY or any other State, for that matter) can say they wrestled the #1 (at 12/23/2007) ranked wrestler in the nation url]http://www.intermatwrestle.com/high_school/rankings/hsrank0708_01.aspx in their weight class. Even though Mason Reid lost to the winner, Quentin Wright, at the Beast of East tourney, the experience was priceless against some stiff out-of-state competition so he gets my vote against some other very talented wrestlers in KY. His college future looks bright if he continues put himself in a position to probably lose with the advantage of gaining valuable mat time in unfamiliar venues.

How fortunate it must be for Union and Trinity to have two young men "on the bench" who were as prepared as these two guys were. Most teams I've seen are lucky to have one and especially impressive with the dedication it takes to stick with the team if you're a senior or not as good as another team-mate. It would be interesting to hear of any other wrestlers who fit this description (and ones who look forward to this kind of situation).

I thought the refs did an excellent job all day. The matches moved fast and I didn't see anything the crowd, coaches or wrestlers strongly disagreed with. They deserve a lot of credit for keeping the day moving along with the physical and mental effort the job entails, as most already know. The wrestlers also showed a lot of respect to each other and opposing coaches which is a sign of great coaching and all deserve a "job well-done". Even the fans were on their best behavior where I was sitting 8-).

Pretty sure Ryle beat Johnson Central for 5th and 6th.

The most exciting match between Union and Trinity was at 140 in my opninion. One minute Union looked to win and the next (I think it was Young vs Watkins but have been wrong many times before) Trinity had the pin. You could see the Union coaches were elated with the "almost" pin only to have the match turn against them seconds later. Of course, it's hard to compare this to the last match because the pressure was on Trinity who trailed 31-33 (I think). That one was six minutes of high intensity pressure start to finish for both heavyweight wrestlers. Lots of fun and worth every penny of the $8.

Trinity beat Union on the last match (pretty sure it was 189) and you got the feeling it would come to the last match early on because it was back and forth the whole time with excellent competition. With Trinity winning a tough match against LaRue and beating Woodford as well, it seems Trinity can give some of the credit to the grueling competition from their bracket preparing them for the powerhouse Union team. Wayne also beat Campbell County for 3rd and 4th place in another close match that was decided near the end but I spent most of the time watching the Union/Trinity match. I left with Woodford still going against Seneca. I'm sure other posters can give you better details on the names of the winners so I'll let them continue the thread.

Union, Trinity (close with LaRue), Woodford (over LaRue by wide margin), Wayne (38-30 with middleweights making up for heavyweights in 38-30 win over Ryle) are the teams that will slug it out for a chance to get to the finals (after 3 rounds) with at least 2 wins so far (and I think Campbell Co has 2 wins also). John Hardin has lost one, Seneca lost to Campbell Co and thats all I have so far. The first round ended with everyone watching Trinity against LaRue. LaRue was stunned by 2 quick pins at 112 and 119 as Woodford continued to look like they have come to make it a long day. Union, it seems, has the easiest bracket as luck would have it. If I made a mistake, oooops! Will return after the finals to see if anyone has posted the final results with another update to a very well run Dual Invitational at Henry Clay.

If Wayne's (not really a sleeper) middleweights can dig real deep they could come out on top.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3208415

I see this thread is pretty much dead but I had one more question about the potential refs. Would this be the same staff that worked the Dragon Invitational? I saw a post about how good they were with penalty points and stalling calls and hoped that would be the case this weekend since last year it seemed stalling was a popular tactic.

Injury risk and the grueling format are high on the list of cons but the chance for wrestlers to get some serious matches (in one day) on their college resume is a big plus in my opinion. Maybe moving it to the beginning of the season would be a good idea to see which wrestlers are really serious after several months of R & R.

It would be in interesting to see the views from the fans, coaches and wrestlers in regards to traveling to Lexington for the State Dual meet this weekend. It's open season on the format, location, time of year, etc. Several States, as most know already, don't even have a State Dual Championship tournament so I :? wondered why.