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HawkeyeX125

Rivalries

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What would y’all say were some of the best rivalries in KY?

Im one of those people that would consider a rivalry to be when both guys have a win over each other but I’m open to hearing any interesting ones

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Union Co. vs all of region 1. 17 straight years of winning regionals will do that. Union's main rivals are Webster Co (don't have a wrestling team) and Henderson Co (dominate Union in every other sport, wrestling not so much). I'd say St. X and Trinity is a big time rivalry. As far as individual's, Dylan Gray (Caldwell) and Dion Leavell (Christian Co) battled many times, including 5 times their senior year. Insko vs Yost was a rivalry dating back to their middle school days trading wins. 

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I was looking for individual rivalries but those teams are nice. I would say wheeler vs yost was a great one, but the X and Trinity rivalry is always a great one across all sports, especially now in wrestling these days.

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Luke Rearic (Lafayette) vs Michael Whalen (Henry Clay). While Whalen won a majority, Rearic won some too. Those matches were always close. The year they meet in the finals, I bet they wrestled 7-10 times. 

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Back in the 90s it felt like there was a good bit of rivalrying between Woodford Co and the Lexington teams.  I remember being in gyms where if a Lexington kid was in the finals with a woodford kid he had 80% of the fans on his side....even his own crosstown rival school would cheer for him to beat Woodford.  Don't feel like that's been the case for the last decade but I'd let those who are involved like Coach Teater speak on it more.

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, CradleKY said:

Back in the 90s it felt like there was a good bit of rivalrying between Woodford Co and the Lexington teams.  I remember being in gyms where if a Lexington kid was in the finals with a woodford kid he had 80% of the fans on his side....even his own crosstown rival school would cheer for him to beat Woodford.  Don't feel like that's been the case for the last decade but I'd let those who are involved like Coach Teater speak on it more.

 

 

 

Totally agree,  it was great back then. At the same time region was heated as well. Was almost like a dual between Woodford and Sheldon clarke at times. While the Lexington schools have always wanted to beat each other up, we still have a bond between each other. 

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Pat White from Hoptown and Brandon Winkenson from Campbell County had some great ones 2 overtime matches and 2 matches decided by 1 point. They have 9 medals between the two and 3 state championships. 

They only met at state duals or state tournament. 

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When Woodford was the team to beat in the 90s and 00s they were rivals with every team.  While Union has replaced Woodford in terms of dominance, I do not think the rest of the state feels the same about both these teams.  Woodford was the ultimate heel of high school wrestling.  They were good, and they knew it, and the blonde hair was just enough to take it over the edge. The entire Frankfort Civic center would be cheering against the Woodford kids.  If a Woodford wrestler lost the place would erupt.  If Woodford did something to excite the crowd you would hear booing from every corner of the arena. Call is poor sportsmanship on the crowd's part, but Woodford really embraced that roll and ran with it.  I feel like the rivalries with Union are more on a friendly level than an adversarial one when comparing these two teams from different times. 

I feel like some of the changes by the KHSAA to KY wrestling has had an influence on team rivalries. The move from the Frankfort civic center, which has been discussed ad nauseum by the old school guys, changed the way the crowd got into it the matches and the drama that happen on and around the mat. Enough has been said about the topic of the civic center, so I will move on.

Another factor in my opinion was doing away with the district-region-state format. As mentioned above this post, some regional finals would almost be a dual between just two of the participating teams. The old Region 4 (district 7 and 8) was pretty much the Lexington area school against eastern Kentucky school.  Many of the schools would never see each other until regionals. You'd get Woodford, Sheldon Clark, and Wayne County all in an 8 man bracket tournament and it was a guarantee that a lot if not a majority of the matchups would be between these school. There were so many memorable rivalries that would not only meet up in the regional finals but potentially in the state finals. Michael Jackson vs William Farrington, Chris Floyd vs Joey Stepp, Chris Sanders vs anybody, just to name a few.  So many personalities, attitudes, backgrounds, and story lines...  I am getting nostalgic here!

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3 hours ago, bluegrassbrawler said:

When Woodford was the team to beat in the 90s and 00s they were rivals with every team.  While Union has replaced Woodford in terms of dominance, I do not think the rest of the state feels the same about both these teams.  Woodford was the ultimate heel of high school wrestling.  They were good, and they knew it, and the blonde hair was just enough to take it over the edge. The entire Frankfort Civic center would be cheering against the Woodford kids.  If a Woodford wrestler lost the place would erupt.  If Woodford did something to excite the crowd you would hear booing from every corner of the arena. Call is poor sportsmanship on the crowd's part, but Woodford really embraced that roll and ran with it.  I feel like the rivalries with Union are more on a friendly level than an adversarial one when comparing these two teams from different times. 

I feel like some of the changes by the KHSAA to KY wrestling has had an influence on team rivalries. The move from the Frankfort civic center, which has been discussed ad nauseum by the old school guys, changed the way the crowd got into it the matches and the drama that happen on and around the mat. Enough has been said about the topic of the civic center, so I will move on.

Another factor in my opinion was doing away with the district-region-state format. As mentioned above this post, some regional finals would almost be a dual between just two of the participating teams. The old Region 4 (district 7 and 8) was pretty much the Lexington area school against eastern Kentucky school.  Many of the schools would never see each other until regionals. You'd get Woodford, Sheldon Clark, and Wayne County all in an 8 man bracket tournament and it was a guarantee that a lot if not a majority of the matchups would be between these school. There were so many memorable rivalries that would not only meet up in the regional finals but potentially in the state finals. Michael Jackson vs William Farrington, Chris Floyd vs Joey Stepp, Chris Sanders vs anybody, just to name a few.  So many personalities, attitudes, backgrounds, and story lines...  I am getting nostalgic here!

  thanks for taking me back!! :)  and of course Woodford embraced it. They used it as fuel and motivation.  How bad do you fight for an escape when a gym full of screaming people just went crazy after you've been taken down?  Harder than you've ever fought before.  And the results speak for themselves.

 

 

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On 3/4/2020 at 1:58 PM, grappler-of-old said:

Pat White from Hoptown and Brandon Winkenson from Campbell County had some great ones 2 overtime matches and 2 matches decided by 1 point. They have 9 medals between the two and 3 state championships. 

They only met at state duals or state tournament. 

 

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Back in the mid 2000's, Caldwell's Cody Walls, Union's Kenny Manuel, and Ft. Campbell's Thomas Campbell had some battles at the 140lb weight class. I believe they were ranked 1-3 going into regionals.

As far as teams, Woodford was against the whole state. Union is 1 team title and individual title from tying them. 13 to 12 and I believe 66 to 65 for individual. My math for individual #'s could be off. Union has won titles in five different decades and Woodford has won in 3 different decades. 

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2 hours ago, ukpridewrestler11 said:

Back in the mid 2000's, Caldwell's Cody Walls, Union's Kenny Manuel, and Ft. Campbell's Thomas Campbell had some battles at the 140lb weight class. I believe they were ranked 1-3 going into regionals.

 

2005 was a NK, WK dominated wt class (140) that year.  of the 8 placements WK had 3 and NK had 3.  NK had 3 in semi's WK 1.  NK 1st 2nd and 5th, WK 3rd 4th and 8th (Washington from Hoptown was 8th) 

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