North Montgomery and Southmont can fill 14 weight classes; they have great youth programs w/ a lot of off-season wrestling, and have the experienced coaches to help make them better. That?s why they are able to beef up their schedule that much and still be able to be competitive. Rarely do they have kids who have never wrestled before high school in their varsity line-up.
Most of the teams in this sectional (6) are from the WRC which is a small school conference. With Fountain Central being the exception this year, all of the teams are no where near full. Most kids don't have to wrestle off because the spots are open to just give them a spot on the varsity team. Attica has 6, North Vermillion has 10, Rockville has 6, Covington has 9, and Turkey Run has 5; with each team having 2 or 3 "tough" wrestlers max, if that. How many "tough" schools would like to schedule these teams or invite them to tournaments? It doesn't do the bigger schools any good to get 1 to 3 good matches for only 1 to 3 kids out of the 14 on their team. Out of these teams, I bet under 10 kids out of the 50 kids on these teams only wrestle. The majority are 3 or 4 sport athletes.
These kids don't wrestle all off-season and go to camps, because they have track season, baseball season, camps for other sports, weights and off-season football things. Its hard to be competitive with the larger schools when you step on the mat late October and are done in Feb. then don't step back on it until late Oct. or early November again. In addition to all of the other sports, how many kids can afford to drive to the larger areas for the good open mats or RTCs during the offseason? It?s hard to be able to drive at least an hour, wrestle and then drive home with gas prices and everything else in their lives.
I'm really not trying to make excuses for these teams but it?s definitely not as easy as it may sound to get the kids out, teach them, get them to wrestle in the off-season, and get all of the parents involved?