rjs4470

So what if it's dominated by freshman or even 8th graders. As mentioned before, Freshman (and some 8th graders) have an impact on pretty much every other sport outside of football at the varsity level. I've seen freshmen and 8th grade pitchers start games in the regional baseball tourney, Sweet 16 basketball tourney, Tennis, swimming, etc. Being a Freshman or 8th grader should not push you back to JV status. You mention NY....99lbs is not a JV weight. They crown a state champion at that weight. Nothing in those results designating it as a JV only.

The upper weights not only have just as many holes, but also, overall, arguably less depth and talent. And that's not just here in KY. It's true even in states where wrestling is more popular.

It is not extremely rare for freshman and sophomores to play varsity in other sports. There are even more than a few 8th graders playing varsity in basketball, baseball,swimming etc. While I understand the desire to reduce forfeits, taking spots away is not good for the sport. Pushing talented kids to JV and less opportunities to wrestle, pushes them out of the sport. The article though isn’t really advocating eliminating weight classes completely. Only possibly, during dual meets, if the teams agree, to make duals more competitive.

Congrats and best of luck at the next level!!

That makes sense. Again, I've never encountered the situation in an individual tourney. It's good to know for future tourneys I'm sure I'll be running.

I'm not questioning, or saying the rule isn't fair or needs to be changed. I'm fine with the rule. Just saying it seems odd.

I guess. It just seems weird to me that you'd remove points scored from a previous round due to an ejection.

I've never had to deal with that situation in Track. The ejections I've encountered have come across, occurred in dual tournaments.The deduction of team points is manual in track in any situation. So I'm guessing, removing the points the ejected wrestler scored would have to be done manually as well. And I'm not sure how you do that after the bout has been entered without changing the winner. And quite honestly, I wasn't aware that an ejection in a tournament required the removal of any team points that wrestler scored prior to the ejection. To me that would be like removing any points a player scored in a basketball game (or any other sport) after he was ejected.

Again, I don't think it was the not shaking hands that got him tossed. I think he said something to the ref when the ref asked him to come back to the center of the mat for the after match stuff (shaking hands. raising the winners arm). I've seen kids get hit for team points for not shaking hands, but never an ejection. I've seen that wrestler lose his cool before. He launched his headgear to the top row of the stands after losing a close match at the Dragon because of multiple issues with his headgear, which probably warranted an ejection. However, the ref didn't see the headgear throw and he got away with it. I am pretty sure that shaking hands with your opponent before and after the match is required. I don't think shaking hands with the opposing coach is.

His last match was against Roberts from Oldham County. It went into overtime, and he ended up losing. After the match, for whatever reason, he didn’t shake hands with Roberts, and when the ref said something to him as he was walking away, I’m guessing he said something back that was inappropriate. Not sure what he said, and it wasn’t clearly obvious what happened, beyond his refusal to shake hands. Whatever it was, the ref tossed him pretty quickly.

It also gives folks a chance to see the big guys go at it, and give them a better chance at MOW, as more people see them before their decisions get made. I really like the change.

Gerald Seeney from Scott will be wrestling at Bellarmine.

The bottom quarter is pretty loaded too, with Kulmer, Vazquez, Horn and Seeney with almost half of the top 10 in the weight class.

The way I understand it, is they are not seeding the whole playoffs. They will only be seeding the semi-final round in each class, so that's not really an apples to apples comparison to the State Wrestling tourney. They will use some combination of the various ranking services that are out there to set the seeds. Strength of schedule plays into all of those, so I don’t think teams will be rushing out to change their schedule in hopes they can pull a number one seed if they make they state semis. I think seeding does need to happen (and not necessarily the whole tourney....setting the top 4 or 8 and having the rest draw in based on region finish works for me). And while rankings can be somewhat subjective, Trackwrestling is a great tool that needs to be utilized more, especially when running tourneys, so all the info needed for seeding is out there and readily available. Seeding doesn't solve everything, especially when the regions are as unbalanced as some are in terms of depth. There are always the occasional region winners that would struggle to place in the toughest regions. But it would be better than the current system.

I'll second that point. My kid was ready to move on from wrestling after high school, until we started talking to some college coaches who once they found out his grades and ACT scores, were suddenly all over him. And despite having just a solid high school resume, he ended up with several opportunities, and will now be wrestling at the next level. People would be surprised at the number of next level opportunities available to good wrestlers with great grades. And if you're a great wrestler with great grades, you'll have plenty of open doors.

I guess the biggest question most would have, is how all the other sports are able to compete without some other insurance similar to USA wrestling?? Are schools just throwing caution to the wind, and letting football and basketball teams compete with some form of liability coverage?? Is wrestling the only sport doing it right?? I can't imagine today, with all the fears of liability, that middle schools would be allowing teams to compete without proper insurance coverage. So while I keep hearing the argument that "you're not covered" from USA Wrestling, I've yet to see or hear anything from the schools that our teams aren't covered, and everything I do hear is that we are.

Everything is on trackwrestling

If this were a KHSAA event, the coach would have to sit out the next event. Since it's not, I'm guessing there is no rule regarding this situation.

It's a great plan. The only drawback would be how to sort out which teams would go.

All seeds roll up and the alternate moves into the 4 spot.

Any open spots will first be filled by the alternate from the region of the missing wrestler. If that alternate isn't available, then the alternate from the next region in the rotation gets the spot. I'm not sure where what that rotation is, but it is usually put out prior to state.

Since everyone else is drawn in by where they finished in the regional tournaments and how the region champs were seeded, in reality, whether you're the 2 or 3 doesn't really matter at middle school state. In a truly open tournament, you are certainly correct....there sometimes is a difference between being a 2 or 3.

Brackets for state are based on placement in the region tournaments. The 4 region champs get seeded on a conference call where criteria is discussed by coaches, starting with head to head, common opponents, then last years state placement (or lack thereof). Everyone else then falls in the bracket based on their region placement following the region champ. Rankings aren’t even discussed and have nothing to do with seeding at state. Rankings are solely to give coaches and dads something to talk about ;-)

Couldn’t agree more. For many kids, wrestling isn’t their main sport. If you force them to do tons of offseason stuff, cut weight had, or give them grief over being just “in season wrestlers”, they will simply quit. Not every kid has the desire to do this sport in college, or be a national contender. The kids that do have plenty of opportunities to get better and improve. We need to make the sport more accessible to the casual kid to grow it. Right now, I feel like we are pushing that kid out of the sport.

If you really want know, yes coaches decided. I’ve been involved in Middle School wrestling and going to meetings for the last 6 years. And this issue got voted on at least 3 different times over those 6 years. I honestly can’t remember how’s my coaches voted, but I do know many coaches don’t bother showing up to vote. This issue has been beaten like a dead horse over the last close to a decade. The two pound allowance won’t stop weight cutting. And without a weight management system, any rule about minimum weight classes a wrestler is allowed to wrestle in, or number of times a wrestler must make weight for the post season, is completely toothless, and could be penciled whipped into uselessness as it often is now at the high school level. Quite honestly I’m not all that concerned about the kid that weighs 107 and wrestles 113 all year but drops to 105 after the allowance he wants to eat like a normal human. It sounds like your issue is with the process and the people in charge. I can tell you the board busts their tail to make things better for this sport. And mostly, they get very little help while doing it because it’s only a handful of coaches across the state that participate in the meetings. They would gladly take the help from anyone willing to chip in.