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Here is a story that I felt was worth sharing with the community that involved Bryce, I don't generally like sharing stuff involving my kids, but felt he deserved credit for this. My middle son (8 years old) had lost in the state semi-finals, and was not handling it very well. We were in the cafeteria wrestling area, and he was having a "freak-out" (he needs to work on this) in the area behind the mats. I was trying to talk to him to calm down, but he was not registering what dad/coach was saying. While this was going on a high school kid was passing through and asked me if he could talk to him. The high schooler sat down with my son, and told him about how he had never placed at ISWA until this weekend, and he had won it today. He discussed how wrestling isn't just about wins and losses, but about progress. This discussion caused my son to calm down, stop crying, and go on to wrestle the rest of his matches and place third. As he left I asked the high school kid his name, he said Bryce Denton. I told him I had heard of him lol. Anyhow I was really impressed with the maturity and kindness that Bryce showed this weekend. I had never met him. As a dad I was worrying what people thought of me/my son with the way he was acting, and Bryce was awesome in helping to calm him down and put things in perspective. Also in my opinion it took a lot of bravery to ask a dad that you had never met to talk with his son in a situation like that. Just wanted to share this and publicly say thanks to Bryce. I was blown away with how impressive he was in this situation.

So Jack Heldt (Wabash/Carmel) captured the D III national heavyweight title and Shawn Streck (Central Oklahoma/Merrillville) won the D II heavyweight title and now Mason Parris is the D I national champ. This is an unbelievable achievement. Indiana should be proud of these three young men.

Just want to congratulate everyone on their awards, and thank Joe, Mike, and everyone else on team IndianaMat for the amazing coverage you provide for our sport. Thank You Coach Lorek

Shout out to my friend Dustin Bentz, aka TripleB!! Dude had a real scare last year, lost about 100 lbs and then decided to step up to the plate and compete at Folk State this year. Still got it! Matter of fact, props to all the dudes in this pic and all the masters division wrestlers still willing to go out and throw down! . Dustin, Sam’s has the 5 gal pale of flex-all on sale… haha.

The pride of Lawrenceburg Indiana gets it done in the finals. Years of struggle and hard works pays off. Great job young man, you earned it.

I almost left my shoes on the mat..... But I couldn't bend over to do it, so they came home w/ me. Thanks everyone for the kind words, it was pretty cool and that's a good group of guys in that picture. All very supportive of each other and wrestling movement!

Hey everyone. I made an announcement on Facebook but wanted to share here as well because I want a great coach to come take this over. Yesterday I resigned as the Head Wrestling Coach at Cascade High School. To many this will come as a shock and it has absolutely nothing to do with Cascade or the state of the program as both of those are in amazing shape. I had to make a decision for myself and do what was best for me professionally to pursue other opportunities. Thank you to everyone who has supported me the past 2 seasons!! I can promise you will see me in a corner next season I just don’t know what colors I will be wearing! Anyone interested in the job at Cascade please reach out I would love to get you in contact with the right people!

Gunner Henry has put together two the best campaigns for a light heavy and he is not mentioned enough. To put things in perspective. His trajectory is on par with Shawn Streck. His only loses at State are to Orlando Cruz and John Purdy. They graduate. He has 2 thirds as a light heavy. He should be nationally ranked I already complained to Flo.

I just wanted to take a minute and commend these young wrestlers, their coaching staffs, and their families for the sportsmanship displayed by the vast majority of these young wrestlers this weekend. These young people have poured countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears into this sport and whether they got the result they wanted or not, they carried themselves with pride and dignity. In a world of trash talking, showboating, and showing up your opponent, it's refreshing to see some humility, humbleness, and mutual respect. Side Note: The GPA's of the wrestlers in the finals were impressive. They are not just disciplined on the mat, but also carrying that discipline into the classroom. Keep up the good work!

I see a lot of talk about mason parris but let’s get Silas some clout in here also. Back to back wins over returning NCAA champion Dean…..

Can’t wait to watch. Hope it’s a well balanced documentary. Looking forward to learning how to redshirt and recruit without getting caught.

I may be biased, as I’m part of the Gorilla Crew and have only frequented college wrestling boards otherwise, but there’s a reason this website has an award-winning reputation. Joe has made this forum better and better over time, and it’s still easily standing the test of time against the social media era, which as Joe said above, hasn’t been great for message boards. But yet I, and many others, are still daily-or-near users even in the off-season. Simply put, we are absolutely blessed with this board. Joe and the other OGs have built something that just keeps getting better. All of our rankers work their asses off to try and give an accurate product. And all the regular users just coming on to hype up their kid or school, or even just discuss wrestling because they love the sport, make for a great experience. In my time on the IM staff(roughly 7 years), my ranking position has progressively transformed from “this is a cool side-job, hope I do well” to “this is something I take a lot of pride in, and I want to do a good job for myself, the website, and the kids who look forward to them.” I’ve been recognized out at a bar before because I was wearing Indianamat gear. Indianamat has surpassed a normal forum at this point, we’re a full community.

Prairie Heights School Farm: *Ample parking *Primitive camp sites available *Plenty of bushes to pee behind *Small petting zoo available *PH FFA has an awesome ice cream machine *I know a guy that grills great pork burgers

Interesting feature on 4 time Indiana State Champ and former Nebraska wrestler Chad Red’s first year coaching at IU by former State placer and IU sports media’s Riley Woodall.

I saw Joe eating breakfast at the Hotel during state finals weekend. I wanted to go up to him and let him know what an awesome job he is doing. But decided that he should not be bothered when he is with his family. So I'll say it here, Joe you do an unbelievable job with this website. I don't post much but there is hardly a day that goes by that I am not on here. The information I gather from here is incredible. Keep up the great work. Congrats on 15 years and many more.

Message boards aren't exactly a thriving community on the internet. Texting and social media means people can communicate just as easy and to their specific groups. I used to have the archives labeled by year and the number of posts has drastically dropped over the past 15 years(yes it will be 15 years in December!). That is due to other social media outlets, but also that many times the posts were questions that are now answered in team or wrestler profiles. However, our board is still very lively and active, which is a tribute to the diehard fans of the sport in this state. Usually the week after state is the only week out of the year where I really want to pull the plug on the board.

It truly is sad. Not only is it turning down overall participation, it is turning what used to be a fun, fond memory of childhood into a job. Or maybe something obscure that you did as a child. We didn't even get fully exposed to organized sports besides baseball and soccer until 6th grade. And then, baseball and soccer were pretty much: Play the park league for a couple months, select an all-start team that plays for a few weeks, then move on with your life until next spring/summer. You played football because you got enough people together to get even teams. You played basketball because there was a hoop behind the elementary school. You figured it out on the fly and it was fun. That does not happen for kids any more. Not much, anyway. If someone shows aptitude, they are shoved camp brochures, travel league schedules, and personal coaches. No matter how good we get at any of them, they are still just games for 99.999% of the population. We can't pay everyone to play sports and we can't let everyone represent our country in diplomatic sporting events. Wow, that ended up being about four times longer than expected. If you read to the end, thank you. I am man enough to admit it was written more for my benefit than anyone else's.

Heldt also received NCAA Div. III Most Dominant Wrestler award by averaging 5.56 team points per match on the season! https://sports.wabash.edu/news/2023/3/11/heldt-wins-wrestling-national-title.aspx Heldt is a pretty special story if you don't know much about him. As a junior in high school he was still JV 170 and believe his JV record that year was 12-5. He grew 3 or 4 inches and spent the summer in the weight room/wrestling room with Nate Warman and everything was different after that! Heldt also won the NCAA Elite 90 award last year when he finished NCAA Runner Up and having a 4.0 GPA. https://www.wabash.edu/news/story/11886

Flip side of this is the kid that grew up in the school system and now after all their hard work, has to take a seat because the superstar moved in. We focus so much time on the top talent and forget about the blue-collar types that are putting the work in and waiting to get their shot

NO ONE WANTS TO SIT ON WOODEN BENCHES FOR 2 DAYS

Pretty Deep ! 2018- 126 1. 3x Asa Garcia (1st, 3rd, 1st, 1st) 2. 2x Cayden Rooks (1st, 2nd, 1st) 3. Ty Mills (2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd) 4. 2x Alec Viduya (1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st) In that bracket you had Bryer Hall State Champion , multiple 2nd place wrestlers.

Definitely against redshirting at any grade. Put a hard cap on the age. 19 years old at the time of your sports state finals is old enough. A 14 year old freshman should not be competing against a 19 year old junior or senior. There are far more scholarships available for academics , so maybe pushing kids harder in the classroom is a better answer than holding them back a year so they can compete against younger competition. I don’t buy the not emotionally ready excuse. These same kids who aren’t ready are also allowed to travel across the country competing often times alone. If they’re mature and ready to travel on their own then compete with your same age kids. I’d be curious to know this years state finalists ages , grades and gpa. Did the kids who redshirted improve or decline academically during their year off? How many redshirt kids actually get a scholarship? Actually graduate? After all if the real goal of redshirting is to gain a scholarship and not just a competitive advantage then what percentage receive them and also graduate? Definitely an interesting topic.

Great points. Dedication is the key and community support. Commitment. Sacrifices have to be made and resources pooled. I hate when people keep giving Fort Wayne an out by saying we don't have middle school wrestling and academies. Start them. Put your money up. I do and will. Drive to RWA. Go to Brownsburg. Pull up on Warren. Go to CIA. Some people are afraid to get their butts kicked in the offseason in front of people. Then your ceiling is third. Is it a secret that our only finalist is an All-American? He put in the work and he hit who he needed to to get better. Gotta take our lumps and then maybe we can compete across the board. If not the status quo shall remain on top.

Each suite will have different themes such as... The General's Suite will have pictures of former Snider and SAC greats in it Caliboy's will be decorated with ISWA medals and Perry Meridian memorabilia J Biceps suite will be decorated with Madison memorabilia including pictures of @TripleB

There are a lot of guys with a good case this year. Hockaday prevented a senior from getting his third straight championship. Thrine had potentially the best overall tournament run, while interestingly only having a 23-16 overall point difference. Torres had a great tournament, and capped off probably the best overall season of anybody in the field in the process. Goin may have looked like the most dominant champion vs. his field, and was without question the most dominant in the championship round. Cruz picking up three falls leading to a win in a nationally ranked showdown. By some national publications, I believe Cruz is(or has been before) the top ranked Indiana guy. Gun to my head, I think I’m picking Goin with Cruz close behind. Though any of these five(and heck, a couple others) have a great case.

I’ve booked several non refundable rooms solely based on the confidence of Coach Oberlin.

Hang on...let me see if I got this right. So IN wrestling talent/skill has increased, which I agree with (see College Board for the IN dudes doin' work). That has happened in a non-classed system. So now that increased skill is somehow a problem and we "aren't being fair to our kids" so we want to class it to decrease our skill level statewide? I'm really #Confused. Did @Galagore hijack your account? Gee I sure hope this class thread gets to 10 pages!! I vowed to never do this again..but here we are. Anybody pumped for Parris vs Davison in the quarters?

Never heard of ‘em

Granted my perspective is nearly 15 years old, but when I was in school I trained at the local wrestling academies Region Elite/Vega/RWA year round starting at age 10. Then every year high school wrestling season would start and I would have to limit myself to just the practices at the high school. In hindsight it was clear that each year I was at peak wrestling performance in November and would steadily decline until February with my worst performances always at State. I could never understand as a high schooler why kids that I would dominate in the off season were able to pull off close wins against me late in the season. Ultimately it all came down to them improving during their high school season while I declined. My high school coaches were great men, and I value to this day the lessons in character that I learned from them, and despite that, I certainly wish my parents would have moved me to a different high school program with more gifted/technical coaches and a more difficult strength of schedule. Coaching, culture, competition, and community are critically important and make a substantial difference. I would not begrudge any parent for wanting to provide the best opportunity for their child.

Looks like a total of six (6) D3 wrestlers from Indiana high schools punched their tickets to Roanoke, VA for next week/end’s D3 National Championships. Here they are with some extra details: Evan Burge 141# SR Wabash McCutcheon High School Central Regionals - 3rd Place Jake Burford 149# SR UW - Whitewater Crown Point High School Upper Midwest Regional - 2nd Place Kristian Rumph 149# SR Wartburg Portage High School Lower Midwest Regional - 1st Place Cole Cervantes 165# SR North Central Griffith High School Lower Midwest Regional - 2nd Place Gavin Layman 184# SO Ohio Northern University Chesterton High School Central Regional - 2nd Place Jack Heldt 285# SR Wabash Carmel High School Central Regional - 1st Place Congrats & Good luck!!!

One of our neighboring states used to have a very lively board, but it petered out and put all of its season-specific info under a paywall. Joe has endured much for little and added a lot for less. I will be forever grateful.

Well as @Y2CJ41 would say there is a website for that ... but I'll save everyone sometime. I liked the idea of a Final score that @purdue02 came up with. I kept this list to people who finished with a final of 30 or less. State Qualifier = 16 Starting with the Original best to not win Ralph Clark- East Chicago Roosevelt 2,3,2,3 final score (10) Shannon Stout- Delta 6,5,2,3 Final score (16) Damon Hummel- Rochester SQ,2,2,3 Final score (23) Mac Taylor- New Castle 6,5,3,3 Final score (17) Tim Maldonado- East Chicago Central 4,SQ,6,2 Final score (28) Robert Maldonado- East Chicago Central 4,SQ,2,3 Final score (25) Randy Baker- Bellmont 3,3,6,7 Final score (19) Andy Uhl- East Noble SQ,4,3,2 Final score (25) Matt Jaggers- New Castle SQ,5,7,2 Final score (30) Craig Macke- Evansville Mater Dei 4,2,2,3 Final score (11) Tyler Goble- Bloomington South 4,5,5,SQ Final score (30) Kyle Mosier- Yorktown SQ,4,4,3 Final score (27) Justin Brooks- Warsaw 5,4,4,5 Final score (18) Derek Bevans- Yorktown SQ,5,6,3 Final score (30) Justin Kieffer- Roncalli 7,7,4,3 Final score (21) Josh Kieffer- Roncalli 5,2,4,2 Final score (13) John Sims- Evansville Mater Dei 6,4,5,2 Final score (17) Tyler Willis- Indianapolis Cathedral 7,2,3,4 Final score (16) Connor Mullins- New Castle 5,3,2,8 Final score (18) Luke Welch- Castle SQ,5,5,2 Final score (28) Zachary Davis- Penn SQ,6,2,2 Final score (26) Vincent Corsaro- Indianapolis Cathedral 6,2,2,2 Final score (12) Chandler Carroll- Yorktown 3,5,4,5 Final score (17) Ben Harvey- Indianapolis Cathedral 7,3,SQ,2 Final score (28) Brandon James- Perry Meridian 3,5,2,3 Final score (13) Connor Knapp- East Noble SQ,4,3,4 Final score (27) Gunnar Larson- Avon SQ,5,2,3 Final score (26) Tristen Tonte- Warren Central SQ,2,2,2 Final score (22) Skylour Turner- Warren Central 8,7,5,5 Final score (25) Gleason Mappes- Center Grove SQ,4,4,2 Final score (26) Kasper McIntosh- Portage 8,2,5,6 Final score (21) Christian Hunt- Yorktown 6,SQ,2,2 Final score (26) Ty Mills- Brownsburg 2,3,2,3 Final score (10) Nathan Walton- Brownsburg 8,3,3,2 Final score (16) Alex Mosconi- Indianapolis Cathedral SQ,7,2,2 Final score (27) Logan Boe- Danville 8,5,7,3 Final score (23) Mason Winner- Jay County 7,8,5,5 Final score (25) Drake Campbell- Brownsburg 5,5,6,5 Final score (21) Raymond Rioux- Avon 6,3,2,2 Final score (13) David Pierson- Warren Central 4,5,4,4 Final score (17) Ian Heath- Leo SQ,5,6,3 Final score (30) Brock Ellis- Chesterton SQ,4,5,2 Final score (27) Aiden Warren- Perry Meridian SQ,3,3,3 Final score (25) Isaac Ruble- Bellmont SQ,2,2,5 Final score (25) Delaney Ruhlman- Bloomington South SQ,2,2,2 Final score (22) Cheaney Schoeff- Avon 2,2,3,3 Final score (10) This list should (mathematically at least) bring some light to the conversation. I loved going through the old records and reliving some of these moments/ careers.

2011 112 lbs. 1. Mason Todd of Pendleton Heights (157-9) - (Q, 5th, 1st, 3rd) - Gave Cody Phillips his first loss in 3 years of high school wrestling at semi-state a week prior, defeated Brenden Campbell twice the following season, and was a 2009 Fargo AA. Also defeat d future (160 lb.) champion Brian Harvey twice as a sophomore. 2. Jarred Brooks of Warsaw (139-6) - (DNQ, 5th, 2nd, 1st) - Responsible for another of Phillips’ only three career losses in the semi-finals, was a Fargo runner-up that summer and won Super 32 as a senior over future NCAA champion NaTo. Spent most of, if not his whole senior season as the #1 113 in the nation. And it’s maybe marginal to mention, but Jarred’s 5th place as a sophomore was likely a case of “he would have been 3rd if he didn’t have the runner-up at semi-state and then drew into the champion’s quarter-bracket.” 3. Cody Phillips of Union County (169-4) - (1st, 1st, 3rd, SQ) - Took 124 IHSAA sanctioned matches for him to finally lose. Had positive career records vs. Brooks and Petrov who finished their senior seasons as champions, while unfortunately Phillips injury defaulted out of the tournament after a semi-finals loss to future 2x champion Cody LeCount at semi-state. Technically only lost 3 matches that he actually started his whole career. Was definitely ranked #1 in the nation at 103 lbs. (maybe even 113) for some time. 4. Paul Petrov of Hanover Central (180-13) - (DNQ, 2nd, 4th, 1st) - Went 142-4 following his freshman season, losing only to the guys ahead of him on this list. Finished his senior year strong with a fall over returning champion Mason Todd in the semi-finals and an all-time-classic with my personal “best to never win it” Brenden Campbell. Since the four were in the same graduating class, they met up multiple times over the years. From their sophomore years on up, they had a combined: 481-15 record, with 10 of the losses coming amongst each other, and the other 5 coming from champion Brian Harvey, runner-up Paul Beck, “best to not win” Brenden Campbell, and 2x champion Cody LeCount.

Why on earth would you want to have the state finals in a fricking high school?

When choosing a community to move to if sports has an impact 1. does your coach help you all year or is only an October-February it’s a lot tougher to be a part time wrestler and have success 2. does it create a better training environment in season Partners, weight program coaching or coaching plans 3. does the school have a better academics then our current community 4. does the sport have better overall community support I think as a parent that makes the choice easy for me.

The MD teams from the 2000's were pretty well home raised, you could connect the dots to see the grade school and Parish these guys went to. If MD was handing out "scholarships" I must have missed that line because we paid full price to go. I had a buddy who had to work all summer (not just a month or so, ALLL SUMMER) to help his parents pay for tuition, to go to MD. That same buddy placed 2nd his senior year, I'd venture to say he'd be a prime candidate to recieve "scholarship money" but never got a dime. You can take that horse poo somewhere else.

The gap between Crown Point and Brownsburg/Center Grove is not that big, was my initial point. In the early 2000's the gap between Mater Dei and the rest of Indiana wasn't even close in a dual format. And in 2003 tournament format wasn't close either. In a time and era without Academies, clubs and kids moving around to wrestle for the best programs possible, they built and developed a machine that dominated this state for a decade and did it in a school with 500 students. Crown Point is an incredible team and program, as are Brownsburg and Center Grove. All are probably better than MD was back then.... Everything is better in 2023- nutrition is better, medical care for athletes is better, the overall wrestling product is better today than it was 20 years ago. But the level of dominance over the field now vs. what they did back then is not comparable.

Mr. Zirkle: This is not a forum for litigation. We don't need your evidence. This is a forum to promote wrestling and to give props where they are due. Your team won. Let it go.

Sammy doesn’t disappoint again this year. That boy just has charisma. Too bad he wasn’t a 4X I would have loved to hear two more interviews. Purdy was good too. To have that clarity after the battle he went through was very impressive.

Mike Krzyston did it again! He followed the CP wrestling team for entire season his film premieres tomorrow. Here is The preview! It looks great! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/exclusive-premier-relentless-a-season-with-crown-point-wrestling-tickets-568476367117 check out the preview on Local 219 FB

I know it's not high school, but just a heads up: we've started an NCAA Pick 'ems game on a college thread linked below. Picks are due on the thread by next Thursday morning.

For the love of wrestling can Verizon get another tower in that area? Or really good public Wifi? Other than that it was a well oiled machine.

All the reasons have I mad respect for guys like Torres(Portage), Jackson(Laporte)and Cole Solomey(Kankakee Valley)to name a few that stayed at their school .

Bethel wins the “best to never place” battle, but it pretty difficult to put a “never placed” wrestler ahead of guys who made the semis 3+ times.

Craig Macke - 4,2,2,3 Freshman - lost to Gerardo Quiroz (runner up) and Thaddeus Douglas (2x fargo AA in Greco) in the 3rd place match Sophomore - lost to Aaron Clark (1,5,4) and is Franklin Community's all time wins leader. Macke beat him a week later at team state. Pinned Nick Hartman in the first period. Hartman would be a state champ the next season Jr - lost to Angel in the finals, beat Nick May (2,3,6) in the semis Sr - lost to Angel in the semis. Also lost a close match to Dustin Schlatter in a dual with St. Paris Graham

This board has made me a minor celebrity. I'm forever grateful.

Gridiron Digest forums took a hit when someone created a Facebook group called something like Indiana High School Football fans. I'm grateful for Indianamat. It's got to be a top 3 high school forums/website in the nation.

What are the best top four finishers in history, in your opinion? 2016 – 132 Chad Red of New Palestine, 4× State Champion | #1 in the nation at 132, #5 P4P Nick Lee of Evansville Mater Dei, 2015 State Champion | #2 in the nation at 132 Brendan Black of Hobart, 2017 State Champion Kris Rumph of Portage, 2018 State Champion 2014 – 285 Wes Bernard of Cathedral, 2014 State Champion | #7 in the nation at 285 Norman Oglesby of Ben Davis | #19 in the nation at 285 Shawn Streck of Merrillville, 2× State Champion | #15 in the nation at 285 Eric Hemmelgarn of Jay County | #17 in the nation at 285 2014 – 220 Gelen Robinson of Lake Central, 2× State Champion | #6 in the nation at 220 Fletcher Miller of Kokomo | #8 in the nation at 220 Connor Tolley of Franklin | #14 in the nation at 220 Dylan Faulkenburg of Cardinal Ritter

Here is the real question: Why in the H-E-double hockey sticks would the NBA host the All-Trash Weekend in Indiana in February anyway? Cold, windy, snowy, rainy. Why would they not look for something warm and sunny? If I was a participant, I would boycott and go South.

We don't know nuttin bout da roundball. We like da wrasslin'! March Madness to us is the ISWA States and The Blood Round Of NCAA's! We done forgot what da roundball do. Reggie Miller retired 15 years ago.