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The fix to filling weights is to have a good feeder program in place and hook these kids at a young age also getting the kids you have to get friends to come out.. If you look around the State i'm sure you will see the same thing i see in Delaware county. examples Yorktown not a large school but has been able to fill a team. Daleville i don't think even had a full team till now, but if you look at their elementary, middle school and even their high school now are growing. Cowan has a great feeder in place now and is growing fast. Delta is doing well with numbers. Monroe Central had small high school numbers but have the numbers now. Then look at other school with no feeder programs and they are the ones struggling. Is this a fast solution no but if your hurting in number there is no better way to get them then to start a feeder program. It comes down to coaching staff and parents putting the work in and the kids will come. If you have a program in place but still do not have the numbers do something different. Summer trips are great. Do freestyle and greco for a lot of places i have heard they don't teach it because they are worried about it effecting folkstyle. All my kids have done freestyle and greco and it has helped a ton. Yes there is an adjustment period at the start but kids adjust fast. I see 7 and 8 year olds every year make this adjustment so it is not an excuse not to do it. Dropping to 12 weights will only hurt the sport more because the schools that do have the weights to fill the classes now will only have 12 spots. That's 2 less spots and 2 less kids making varsity. Giving 2 kids a reason to want to quit. I just don't see any positives from this.

Let me start by saying at Columbus East we have had a full (or nearly always full) and competitive roster for the past several years. So this comes from my own perspective... When I look at the list kids who have either quit, or don't come back the following year, almost all of them are kids who were varsity and were going to probably get beat out of the lineup the next season or kids who got beat/about to get beat out of the spot in the current season. If the number of weight classes are reduced, at Columbus East, we would certainly lose kids. I just don't see how eliminating opportunities (weight classes) would possibly increase participation. It may or may not decrease the number of forfeits, but won't increase the overall participation.

My biggest fear is once we start losing weights, we can't get them back if participation rises or we get the desired affect. Especially at smaller schools you seem to have a lot more "varsity or bust" attitudes and with less opportunities I don't see that being a good thing. As far as this proposal, I can see some issues. It said basically they will only have 14 weights in duals if it is agreed upon prior. Two issues I see are.... 1. Kids at 195 and 106 won't have enough matches during the season. 2. Teams that have able bodied wrestlers might lean towards the 12 weights if the other team has a good 106 or 195 in order for them to have a better shot to win.

I used to do a middle school dual with New Pal at the U of I inter-squad. We would wrestle 8 or 10 weight classes. Each coach would pick four or five weight classes. It was like a chess match. You didn't want to pick a weight class that you knew the other coach would want to pick, but you didn't want to leave your best kids on the bench. We alternated choice like school yard picks. One coach picked and the other got the next two. This was cool, but doesn't fix the problem we are talking about. Coaches would pick the class that the other coach didn't have filled to get the W. Not bashing the idea either.

Battle of state champs at 138lbs, note that Pennsylvania's state championships are this weekend

Congratulations to Noah Lamore from Crown Point for signing with Indiana Tech. He is projected to wrestle 157. View full signing

Here is a quick summary. I may have missed some and if so, my apologies: 125 Luke Welch - Castle/Purdue 14 seed - will face Connor Brown of SD St Elijah Oliver - IU Unseed - faces #9 Ronny Rios (Oregon St?) Brock Hudkins - Danville/NIU Unseeded - faces #7 seed Taylor Lamont (Utah Valley St) - Lamont is a RS Frosh who has had many battles with Chad Red the past few years in the off season, and one against Nick Lee 133 Steven Micic - Hanover Central/Meechigan #2 seed as expected. Could see a 4th match vs Luke Pletcher in the semis. Micic has taken the last 2 after a loss early in the year 141 Nick Lee Mater Dei/Penn St #8 seed - faces Maryland's Ryan Diehl. Lee majored him 22-10 in their only match this season. Could set up a rematch with Josh Alber where Lee won by fall at the Southern Scuffle, late in a very close match. Chad Red - New Palestine/Nebraska Unseeded (this one puzzles me a bit) - faces #7 Seed Brock Zacherl of Clarion. Zacherl is 28-1 and beat Nick Lee in his 2nd match of the year 6-4. Wrestled a defensive style against Lee. Cole Weaver - IU #16 Seed - faces a pigtail winner between Kyle Shoop of Loch Haven and Vince Turk of Iowa. Other Big Ten notes: Illinois Michael Carr who beat Nick Lee at the B1G Championship is seeded #11. I really thought he would jump Lee. Tommy Thorn of Minnesota was unseeded. Thorn should provide a tough opener for #10 seed Mason Smith of Central Michigan. 149 Jason Tsirtsis gets the 10 Seed and will face Dane Robbins of Air Force in the first round. This would set up a match against Northwestern's Ryan Deakin who got the #7 Seed. At least he stays away from top seed Zain Retherford. 157 Lots of Big Ten focus here, but didn't see any Indiana connections. The B1G got seeds 3, 5, 6, 7, & 8. Penn St.'s Jason Nolf gets the 3rd seed. Nolf has only lost once this year to injury default. He wrestled twice at the Big Ten and then MFF to 6th. Seems like a tough penalty to drop the defending champ due to a couple of MFF's that carried the intention to make sure he is healthy for Nationals. The 2 seed is Missouri's Lavalee, who Nolf destroyed in the National Championship last year. Bottom line, if Nolf is healthy and his knee can hold up, no one here will beat him. Though an interesting quarterfinal matchup could loom with Nolf vs. Iowa's Michael Kemerer who got the #6 seed after being ranked #2 most of the year. He also MFF'd to 6th place at the Big Tens after winning 2 matches. 2nd Half coming shortly....... 165 This could be one of the most interesting weight classes (along with 125 and 141 IMO) and is definitely Big Ten heavy, which has 9 of the 16 seeded wrestlers. IMAR gets the #1 seed with McFadden of Va Tech #2. Followed by Joseph (PSU) at #3, Alex Marinelli (Iowa) #5, Richie Lewis (Rutgers) #6, Logan Massa (Michigan) #7, and Evan Wick (Wisky), Isaiah White (Nebraska), Nick Wanzek (Minny), Te'shan Campbell (OSU) seeded 10-13. Keep an eye out for Chance Marsteller (Loch Haven) who is 40-2 on the year and drew a #9 Seed. 174 Ben Harvey - Cathedral/Army Unseeded - Drew into a pigtail match and faces Tyrel White (Columbia? Cornell? Colorado?). The winner faces #5 Seed Myles Amine of Michigan. Dylan Lydy - Ben Davis/Purdue #15 Seed - faces Northweatern's Johnny Sebastian. Sebastian is 2-1 vs Lydy this year. The weight is most likely to be a showdown between Penn St's Mark Hall and Arizona St's Zahid Valencia. Both undefeated, they faced off in the semifinals last year with Hall pulling out a squeaker which included a penalty point for grabbing the headgear. Hall is the defending champion, but the #2 Seed. Valencia beat Hall in a pre-season exhibition, in another tight match. 184 IMO, this class is a battle to see who will face Penn St.'s Bo Nickal in the final. Nickal, last year's champ seems to have solved Ohio St.'s Myles Martin (3 in a row, I believe) but Martin has won before, including in the 2016 NCAA Final. No Indiana ties that I saw here. 197 May be the most wide open weight in the tournament. I'm sure Ohio St fans would disagree, but I don't see Kollin Moore as a heavy favorite, yet he is the favorite. Jared Haught of Va Tech, Ben Darmstadt of Cornell , NCSt.'s Mike Macciavello, and Penn St.'s Shakur Rasheed will battle to try and knock Moore off. 285 Shawn Streck - Merrilville/Purdue Unseeded drew #13 seed William Miller of Edinboro. Like 174, this weight seems to be all about the top 2 and Round 3 between Kyle Snyder and Adam Coon. Coon is a beast and pushes every bit of 285, but moves very well. Many consider Snyder the best in the world but gives up a ton of weight choosing to wrestle closer to his Freestyle weight. Should they make the final like most expect them to, it should be MUST SEE TV! Wrestling begins Thursday the 15th, if I looked at my calendar correctly! Sorry if I missed anyone with Indiana ties!

Sign me up for these matchups: 125: Semis of Cruz-Suriano/Lee-Tomasello 133: Would love a Gross-Micic final 141: Yianni-Meredith rematch (would love to see a Lee upset) 165: IMAR vs Cenzo rematch 174: Hall vs Zahid rematch 285: Snyder vs Coon rematch Mildly excited: 184: Nickal vs. Martin (I'm still interested in this rematch) Not that excited about: 149: Zain (love watching him wrestle but no real challengers) 157: Healthy Nolf and then everyone else 197: although it could factor in team race

The truth is not bashing. Goldman had success for a period of time but in the last 8 years they have only won 4 Big Ten duals. 6 years they didn't win one. In that span Goldman is 4-60. It's time for us to step up and ask for change. If Duane was in any other sport he would have been fired a long time ago.

But you still keeping up this same tired argument. All I’ve ever said and ask for from you is two thing. 1. Stop polluting every single college thread with a need to turn it into something about IU. It’s been nice for awhile actually see some college threads that you didn’t turn into a IU bashing moment. Thanks for that. 2. Stop trying to badmouthing any positive results the IU wrestlers actually get by somehow making it about a Goldman negative. Those guys are working hard and doing what they can within the system. There is not need to drag them or their accomplishments down just to take another poke at the head coach. I’ve never directly defended coach Goldman or for that matter attacked him negatively. I actually make it a point to not make personal judgements about the coaches or wrestlers unless it is a very extreme situation. And no a poor team or individual record is not an extreme situation worth my personal judgement. What I have done in the past is draw the boards attention many positive accomplishments that college wrestlers from Indiana or from a Indiana college have done. Then tried to adk you to stop turning every single thread in this forum into a off topic bashing season due to your vendetta against one coach. If in your eyes that puts me in the Goldman support wagon that is fine, but in mine it puts me on bandwagon for supporting college wrestling as it relates to this state. And as I’ve asked of you many times before please make an attempt to contribute anything additional to this college board other than just your Goldman vendetta. Unfortunately I’m not sure that’s ever occurs, which has made it very clear your interest isn’t anything related to helping improve this college wrestling forum.