Hey RankingsGuy, I have a couple of topics for discussion on tonights chat.
1. 2 New Castle guys ranked at 119 and 2 Mater Dei guys ranked at 160.
2. I noticed a couple of state qualifiers from last year that were not in the rankings. Alonzo Shepherd (Jeffersonville) and Luke Welch (Castle). What are your thoughts about these guys and what looks like stacked weight classes they are in?
3. 145 only has 15 guys ranked. What about Drake Meska from Jay County?
4. There have been many rumors that Trey Reese (Indian Creek) will be at 215 and you have him ranked at 171. Do you have information on what weight he will wrestle this year and where he would fit in at 215?
5. Gabe Holt (Columbus North) beat Brock Wathan(Jennings County) in the sectional and Joey Juliano (Mooresville) in the semi-state. What are your thoughts about where he may fit.
6. Several Hoosier Hills Conference guys that I was curious about. Zach and Steven Rieker from Columbus East both lost in ticket round last year. Robby Taylor from Madison. Joey Resch, Justin Baldwin and Iyan Bass from Jennings County all lost in the ticket round last year.
I know that is quite a few items to discuss, but your thoughts about these guys would be greatly appreciated. Again you do a great job and I am in no way complaining about these rankings. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insight.
Thanks for the topics of discussion cewrestlingfan... i truly believe that transparency in the rankings is great for indiana wrestling and i value people's questions and opinions and hope i can give my take on things tonight in a way that is satisfactory to everyone. let me just start with the two questions of yours that i can answer the quickest, and i will be sure to expand on the others tonight...
2 kids from NC at 119 and 2 kids from MD at 160 are simply mistakes that I overlooked. I do expect Brenden Campbell to be at 119 since he has wrestled in that weight pre-season, so I expect Alex Catron to move up to either 125 or 130, but have not got official word of where he'll be. Similarly, I have been told that John Sims will wrestle 160 this year, which creates an interesting situation at MD because Dalton Brandenstein cannot simply move up to 171, because Josh Boots is there. Also, I have not got a lineup from Mater Dei and will be interested to see how that all shakes out.
Per his father, Trey Reese is still playing football and plans to start the season at 215 and drop down to 171 by sectional time. That is why he is ranked there. As far as where he would fit in at 215? I actually had him ranked number 1 at 215 when I originally thought that he was planning on wrestling there. I think there is a huge benefit in the upper weights of knowing how to wrestle. Not to take anything away from the other 215 pounders, but I was not blown away by anyone in the 215 pound weight class last year except for Cleveland, Lentz, and in flashes, Keith Knura. If Reese were able to manage the strength of the athletes at 215, I believe that he'd be the favorite at that weight class given his ability to wrestle, and execute techniques. If you look at the successful upper-weights, they are the ones who are agile and technically sound, despite their large bodies. (Pat Day, Marcus Shrewsbury, Dexter Larimore, Matt Hasbrook are a few that come to mind)
Hope this is a good start, looking forward to the chat tonight..
