MLee

Boston should be in there somewhere. I wanted Brad Cooper as well, but already had 2 Pioneers. Almost put Storms at 103 just to watch your head explode. I never seen Ritchie wrestle, but heard he was in a class of his own.

He was an absolute monster. He pinned the defending state champion (David Donnelly) in the state finals in the 1st period (I believe) as a Sophomore. The next year, he pinned a young man by the name of Pat Martz in 17 seconds at Districts. Missed weight at Regionals and never wrestled again. Martz went on to win his 1st of 3 state championships that year.

That was a lot harder than I thought. I probably gave the old heads way too much credit. Reality is, new generation would open a can on those 80’s and 90’s guys.

98- Jeff Everman 103-Joe Carr JR. 112-David Ritchie 119-Kyle Ruschell 125-John Fahy 130-Brock Irvin 135-Dave Barnes 140-Issac Knable 145-Jerod Trice 152-Willie Ennels 160-Harrison Courtney 171-Tendai Charasika 189-Miguel Merritt 215-Austin Meyers HWT-Bruce Stepp

Want to make this topic really interesting, list your GOAT per weight class. Would need Ranger to set the weight classes.

Robbie Clarkston- 4x state champ + a runner-up as an 8th grader.

Try facing 16 year old 8th graders with 13 year old 8th graders for a state football championship! It looks so wrong. Still don't know how we won that one. Good luck wrestlers!

I’d be more concerned about participation than the format. Based on Track’s #’s, we had a decrease of almost 20% this year vs last year. I recall a season of 1200+ youth only kids. This year we had under 1000 and that includes 200+ MS aged kids.

Probably needs it’s own topic.. 103 in 1990 had 6 state champs in a 16 Man bracket: Tom Storms, Steve Kaiser, Brad Irvin, Branden Wilkins, James Elliot, Pat White.

Bryan Peace from Ryle won 5.

Congrats Mason!

Thomas over Peace (106).

I guess I don’t see the correlation between how well you perform and this data. It drastically rewards the Regional losers too much for it to make any sense.

It is cool to look at, but what does it actually show? Using your WV #’s, I don’t think anyone would consider Spalding an 8 seed, would you? Skews the #’s quite a bit when top 2 or 3 are in the same region. Same report using Duke’s rankings would be interesting.

Cool report. Not sure exactly what to take from it.

Koepp had a great tournament. Certainly had the upset of the tournament over Fletcher. McCracken should change their names to the McCradle’s! Their cradles were given the rest of KY fits all day. Congrats to their team! Congrats to Ryle and their staff. Not easy winning State Duals and a team State Title w/ a few missing peices, including last year’s MOW. 1st year wrestlers did great, including a 3rd at HWT. Nicely done!

I’m not going to mention any kid by name. I just don’t think it’s appropriate. With that stated, I can assure you the circumstances of that dual dictated who was waking on the mat. If it came down to the 70 lb match, we all know who would have wrestled. Ryle and McCracken both showed up guns-a-blazing to win. They both wrestled great and should be commended for showing up and competing, unlike many other programs. As mentioned, comparing dual meet strategy and unsportsmanlike behavior are on different stratospheres. From what I recall, the rules state the “board” decides the punishment. Forgive me in advance if I’m wrong, but if I’m not...it’s a double standard. For the record, I don’t propose the coach/board member should be banned. I’m sure he’s apologetic and learned from his mistake. With my limited dealings w/ him, I can say he’s a solid guy that is great for KY wrestling. But if he’s gets a pass then I think the 14 year old deserves one as well.

Sure. A coach (and current board member) was kicked out of state duals for poor sportsmanship. Per the discussion here, a wrestler was kicked out of Regionals for poor sportsmanship during the 3rd/4th place match. He cannot participate in the state tournament. If we are going to prevent a young wrestler from participating in the state tournament for being kicked out of Regionals, shouldn’t a coach/board member have the same punishment?

Anyone know if the kid was kicked out of state by his coach or was is it a decision made by the board? I think it’s obvious where I’m going w/ this.

Especially when the knucklehead is the president of the youth. Very embarrassing.

Shout out to Coach Ruschell and his coaching staff. That was an incredible showing over the weekend. Great job running the tournament too! Scary to think what that team would look like with Duke, Belk, and Colemire all wrestling this season! Good luck Raiders!

I took a quick look at last year's 70 lb MS bracket. I found 5 kids that qualified for MS State and wrestled in the Youth State Tournament (may have missed others). Here is how they placed in their Youth State weight classes: 1, 2, 2, 3, DNP. Does that look like they "dominated" the youth tournament? Absolutely not. Some of those losses came by youth kids w/ no MS experience. The notion that they have "graduated" from youth by qualifying for the MS State tournament is absolutely asinine.

Sorry, I couldn't read past that "this rule absolutely helps our growth" statement.

Referencing super stud HS kids isn’t a fair comparison. We’ll probably see a 4th grader go 0-2 in the MS State tournament this year. That kid won’t be permitted to wrestle in the Youth state tournament. Does that seem right to you?