DamonMBarnes

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Posts posted by DamonMBarnes

  2. Posted · Report reply

    IMO, Scott Cooper never gets the credit he deserves in these discussions.

    Freshman Year - 2000 - 3rd place - 125

    Sophomore Year - 2001 - 2nd place - 130

    Junior Year - 2002 - 1st place - 140

    Senior year - 2003 - 1st place - 140-  beat 2x State Champ Luke Metzker in the finals.

     

  4. Posted · Report reply

    One thing I always hate in these discussions is the notion that Lexington is the center of the state.  Geographically it is in Marion or Taylor county depending on what source you use.  Population it is in Washington County.  Both of those are roughly the same distance from Louisville as they are from Lexington.  

    The one thing I know is it desperately needs to leave the Horse Park.  I think a suitable facility could be found but getting the KHSAA on board with anything not in their backyard might be the real issue.

  5. Posted · Report reply

    6 hours ago, grappler-of-old said:

    How about it has been 19 consecutive years that an Ervin family member has qualified for the state tourney.  The last year without a qualifier was 2002.

    The 1st time in 14 consecutive years that an Ervin family member will not be in the finals. 

    Sayre has its 1st state qualifier.   Making 146 KY teams to ever have a state qualifier. 

    I thought semi-state is technically the first round(s) of the state tournament which would keep the first one alive as Paxton Ervin made it to SS1.

  10. Posted · Report reply

    4 hours ago, naplesme said:

    You made your own point. The most outstanding wrestler is supposed to be the most dominating wrestler. Smallwood was the most dominating which makes him the M.O.W. obviously. Your  138 pinned his way to the finals so he should have been considered before Hoppes. Just saying 

    You’re smarter than this. Should strength of opponent not be considered at all?  Based on this answer it doesn’t seem you think it should. 

    However, in reality I have to believe you think it’s a factor. Both Hoppes and Smallwood faced the #10 wrestler in the state and both pinned. Hoppes also faced the #2 wrestler in the state and won without giving up an offensive point. Smallwood faced nobody ranked higher than #10. Surely that has to be factored into the equation, right?

    • Upvote 1
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  11. Posted · Report reply

    I'll start this off by saying that Derrick Smallwood is a fantastic wrestler.  However, I cannot imagine how any coach in their right mind would vote for him MOW over Thomas Hoppes.  Derrick -- who was ranked first and expected to win -- had a fine tournament and took care of a #9, #12, and #13 wrestler in dominating fashion.  That being said, Thomas Hoppes as a freshman ranked 10th in a higher weight class pinned the #10 kid in the state then upset the #2 kid in the state while not giving up an offensive point. 

     

    The only thing I can think of was that most coaches had already turned in their ballot by the time Hoppes had concluded his upset.  That's the only good reason I can come up with because the resumes speak for themselves.  If there are any coaches who would like to back up their vote I'd love to hear the reason.

    • Upvote 2

  12. Posted · Report reply

    On 2/6/2017 at 1:36 PM, wrestlingfan03 said:

    I really liked the seating and space inside the arena. The venue itself was good however I still prefer the horse park in Lexington because it's located more central. 

    Marion County is the geographic center of Kentucky so there isn't much of a difference between the Horse Park and Broadbent.  In fact, Broadbent might be closer.  Population-wise, I'd imagine Louisville is much closer to being centrally located than Lexington.

    • Upvote 1

  13. Posted · Report reply

    18 hours ago, Ranger123 said:

    I don't think the horse park is really an option. Logistically it is a nightmare (trust me) and financially it isn't much better than a nightmare. Not to mention they are not easy to work with. Under the current structure we are piggybacking ms and youth so we need to keep that in mind for the site. 

    Not to mention there were plenty of issues with that site. 

    I personally would like to see high school moved from the horse park.  I'm really glad to see that it's probably not an option for youth and middle school going forward. 

  14. Posted · Report reply

    Should be a good region tournament with a lot of competitive wrestling.  Here are my predictions:

    106
    Mattingly
    Hoppes
    Garcia
    Perry
    Slight upset here but Hoppes is wrestling extremely well and I think he is poised to revenge his Garcia loss.  Mattingly is a potential finalist at state!

    113
    Miller
    Morgan
    Kirkman
    Butler
    I think it’s fairly open after the first two and again I see a potential finalist in Miller.

    120
    Insko
    Miller
    Haverstick
    Philpott
    The pending semi match between Miller/Haverstick should be close.  Would be crazy, but R2 could have three straight finalist at the lower weights with Insko here.

    126
    Grimsley
    Nard
    Hite
    Medley
    Places 3 – 6  are really wide open.  This weight class will be a factor for team race.

    132
    Metcalf
    Wallace
    Williams
    Whitaker
    Expect Metcalf to score bonus points for LaRue here.

    138
    Johnson
    Davis
    Thornton
    Broich
    Tip my hat to T. Johnson for staying here.

    145
    Young
    Goodin
    Jarrow
    Tilley
    Now that Trent is down this one becomes pretty wide open.  I see a really close finals match between these two.  Flipped my prediction multiple times.  Hoping I'm wrong and Levi goes out a champ! :)

    152
    Smallwood
    Leak
    Fuller
    Johnson
    Loaded weight class.  Both Smallwood and Leak have what it takes to make finals at state.

    160
    Bell
    Nichols
    Dulak
    Lee
    Bell is healthy and wrestling well.  This will be a tight bracket.  Could see any result among these four.

    170
    Williams
    Bingham
    Santiago
    Lawrence
    Mild upset with Santiago outwrestling his seed here.

    182
    Shantz
    Page
    Pierce
    Brecker
    Shantz should rack up valuable bonus points in this weight class.

    195
    Steven
    Jett
    Volentine
    Mills
    #1 vs #2.  Should be a good one.

    220
    Jones
    Pratt
    Wright
    Miller

    HVY
    Shelton
    Humphrey
    Morriss
    Holifield
    The freshman pulls one out at heavy!

    Team score
    1.  LaRue
    2.  Meade 
    3.  John Hardin
    I think LaRue wins by more than people are expecting.  John and Meade are super close for 2nd.

    • Upvote 1

  15. Posted · Report reply

    11 hours ago, Josh_Claywell said:

    The front yard? You mean the back forty? :D

    And no, they didn't charge anything for parking at state XC -- though parking this year was a nightmare because of all the work they had going on during the summer and fall. The grass lots where I parked were nothing but a quagmire.

    This.  Parking wasn't ideal by any means but it was free.

  16. Posted · Report reply

    If you don't believe LCAlum let's use a little math.  Two quick facts:

    1.  LaRue lost by 15.5 to Meade County.

    2.  Franklin scored 21 points for LaRue.  

    For the sake of argument, let's say that Dulak wrestled like "a stud" and wins 152.  We will award him the 28 points that Knoth scored for his team (which was the highest anyone scored for their team).  This makes up 7 of the points needed for LaRue to beat Meade (28 - 21), leaving them 8.5 shy of overtaking Meade.  Also Knoth would lose 4 placement points for getting 2nd instead of 1st.  Knoth also loses the 2 bonus points for pinning in the finals.  So Knoth's score drops 6 points which still leaves LaRue 2.5 shy of overtaking Meade.

    In short, Dulak coming and wrestling like "a stud" wouldn't have mattered...

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Possibly. All I know is the vast majority of coaches have addressed issues in a much more professional manner rather than coming online and accusing those doing all of the work of doing something improper behind the scenes.

    Yes, also the other people who worked on the brackets addressed my concerns without a) acting in an unprofessional manner or b ) turning my words into something I didn't say.  I had a conversation yesterday with another individual that worked on the brackets that was actually quite pleasant and nothing like this interaction with you.

    I had a concern, this thread seemed like it was started to discuss the brackets and the process.  There wasn't anything said to the contrary about expressing any concerns in this thread so I took a thread started for bracket discussion as a place to do that.  I found that 69.2% of our kids had a first round opponent when it was stated that this scenario was trying to be avoided --- that number seemed quite high to me -- and my comment about us just being unlucky was meant with sincerity.  

    Based on the discussion yesterday I understand more of the process.  But NOWHERE did I accuse anyone of any wrongdoing nor did I NOT thank you all for your efforts.  I have tried to drop this but for reasons I'm unsure of you feel the need to continue to slander me and actually make accusations about things I did not do.  But, so it's out in the open and to not have any misunderstandings, NO, I do NOT think the people who organized the brackets had a vendetta against LaRue County wrestlers.

    Just as you told me there was a right way and a wrong way to bring up my concerns, there is a right way and a wrong way for you to handle this.  Once again, no hard feelings and thank you for the work you have put in.

  18. Posted · Report reply

    The statement (though not perfect) was merely explaining our process and goal. There is no rule that we have to separate regional teams. It's just something we try to do to avoid kids potentially wrestling kids they have wrestled all year. You didn't merely point out a discrepancy, but by your choice of words and method of communication you all but accused us of doing something inherently wrong. Those doing the work are not perfect and mistakes are made, but there is a right way and a wrong way to address those mistakes.

    You're obviously taking this wrong. Thanks again for the work you and others put in. No hard feelings from me...

  19. Posted · Report reply

    Transparent? Are you serious? So in the process of entering over 900 kids and their information into the system and building over 70 brackets we conspired to not follow the same procedure with only the Larue kids. Give me a break. Since you are obviously better at this than any of us or our group, I assume we can put your name down to be an officer for the next few years and you can show us how it's done.

    I gave LaRue as an example as that is the school I am affiliated with. I looked through several other schools in the region and saw the same thing. I gave one bracket as an example.

    I never said I was better at it, even thanked you all for doing it. I was merely pointing out that at a cursory glance that statement didn't seem to be the case. I know it's an arduous task, as a Database Administrator, ETL then running reports on said data is something I do almost every day.

    I'm currently back in school but when finished I hope I can get more involved. If the offer still stands when that time comes I hope to take you up on it.

  20. Posted · Report reply

    We are still in the process of making corrections.  Unfortunately, some coaches waited until after we created brackets to let us know their mistakes (we've also made a few). 

     

    I made a few adjustments to your teams brackets to help avoid 1st round regional match-ups (where available).  I will say, your region was BY FAR the largest in the state; therefore, in some cases there isn't much we can do. 

    Thank you.  I know it has to happen in some cases but it did seem like an abnormally large amount.  Definitely to that last point. If you compare it to the high school region alignments, our region has teams from HS Regions 2, 3, 4, and 5.

  21. Posted · Report reply

    Finished up LaRue's kids.  We have 15 kids entered with 13 of those being in a bracket (2 have round robins).  Out of that 13 there are 9 kids with a region opponent in the first round.  That's 69.2% of our kids.  With a quick glance it seemed like all of these could have been done differently where they didn't have a region opponent in the first round while avoiding doing the same to someone else.

    I will say thank you all for getting brackets done but I really wish our school wasn't one of the ones who got hit with so many first round region opponents.  Maybe we were just unlucky...

     

  22. Posted · Report reply

    I went through all five of LaRue's 2002/2003 kids and four out of the five have a region opponent in the first round.  The only one who doesn't is Tucker Shelton who is in a round robin with NO kids from his region.  Let's be transparent here, don't say you avoided matching kids up from the same region in the first round when it's pretty apparent that it did not happen.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    After all the wrestlers were entered track wrestling has a program for 10%.  After Track put the brackets together we went through and made sure kids from the same team where on opposite sides of the bracket.  If it was possible we tried to keep kids from the same region apart in the first round.

     

    How much time was put into the last part?  The first bracket I look at is full of first round matches between region members.  2002/2003 74.4-77.6 has five wrestlers from the Hardin Co/Louisville region, Rosenblatt (North Hardin), Puyear (LaRue), Wade (River City), Haverstick (John Hardin), Frech (River City).  Out of those five wrestlers, four of them are facing each other in the first round.  To me, it doesn't seem like that last part holds true as it would be very possible to keep any of these kids from facing each other.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Yes, the level of competition in that weight class would be raised for THAT SEASON...but at what long-term costs?  Do we really want our State Tournament to turn into nothing more than a Proving Ground for talented 8th graders from surrounding states?  Instead of bringing in these talented 12-13 years olds in exchange for team points, why not focus on developing kids who plan on graduating from a Kentucky High School?  When the single year 8th grader competes in Kentucky, he is not a Kentucky wrestler...he is temporary Indiana or Ohio transplant.  And when his time is done, he returns to his state to become a wrestler who contributes to the level of wrestling in his state.  Let's allow Indiana and Ohio to develop their own talent! 

     

    As a result, Kentucky becomes a "Practice" state for parents willing to move their families for some hardware and for the coaches willing to receive their services.  A single year of service may yield a hollow State Championship for a team, but how does it contribute to the growth and development of Kentucky wrestling, and wrestlers, long-term?  Our championship is called the KENTUCKY State Wrestling Championships...not the "Kentucky State and Talented Eight Graders from Surround States State Championships."   I understand that some will disagree...but this is my perspective.

     

    Let's assume David Carr doesn't come back.  Wouldn't all of his teammates have benefited from having such a phenomenal practice partner this year?  What about the in-state kids he got to wrestle, wouldn't they have benefited from a tough match?

     

    At youth state, I also heard three different coaches using his state performance as an example for their kids on what hard work can do for you.

     

    Furthermore, there were a few wrestlers I saw at the youth tournament who wrestled in state but no other current wrestler was as engaged as he was --- and to have wrestled in the finals nonetheless.