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Coach Holden and I are proud to announce that we will be taking our rivalry to Hoosier Gym, the home of the fictional Hickory Hoosiers in the iconic 1986 film Hoosiers. The date is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The gym last regularly hosted meets in the late 1960's before Knightstown moved to their current facility. The Panthers have wrestled Eastern Hancock in the facility in recent seasons. NineStar will help us make history by doing the first ever telecast of a wrestling meet from the facility. Coach Holden and I are working on some ideas to make the event even more special. Hope you can join us for this special evening. Stay tuned for future announcements.

I have always only attended the IHSAA State Tourney, whether it was to watch as a youngster or wrestle in it. This didn't really give me much perspective on the class system and all the ins and outs of how it is ran at the state tournament level in other states. I recently moved to Colorado about a year and a half ago and began coaching at a 5A school in the Denver Metro Area, where I not only had the chance to experience it first hand, but also had the chance to speak to others on their thoughts on how Indiana runs it. I definitely got a lot of 'wow! no wrestle backs'...'if you lose first/second round at semi state or 1st round at state, you are done? what if you wrestle the champion first?'...but the overall thing they all stated was 'I really wish it was just one class like IN, CA, NJ, etc.' I didn't want to judge it based on just their opinion, so I had to wait until the post season rolled around for the State Tournament, and fortunately I had a State Qualifier, so I can have added input. After going through it, I can express my thoughts. Colorado has 4 classes (2A-5A). I know a lot will say we wouldn't do 4 classes and would do 2 or 3. The concerns I have still pertain to what I saw, but who knows maybe it would be way better with 2 or 3 vs 4. My issues with the class system starts with the amount of division that causes between the state. They had 10 mats out but ran 2a/3a together and 4a/5a together making it two entirely different tournaments on the thursday, friday, sessions. They would make you leave multiple times within the tournament if your session wasn't going. Even though we ran our 5A session with 4A, there was no association at all. 4A was on mats 1-5 and 5A was on mats 6-10. and I guarantee if you were associated with 5A, you will have no chance to see the 4a matches across the event center with 10 mats going. Let alone the 2a/3a you werent allowed to stay for. This boils down to the recognition factor for these young men pouring their hearts into this Sport that will in turn grow the sport. There were 4 individuals going for their 4th state title. 3 achieved it. one was 2a, one was 3a, and one was 5a. Im sure you can assume the only one I was able to watch the whole time I was their. I wish I had the chance to watch Andrew Alirez ranked #1 in the nation at 152) in route to becoming a 4 timer, but he was in 3A. If you have affiliation with a certain class, you wont be able to watch others. There is too much going on. I did get to watch Cohlton Shultz capture his 4 timer status though, and keep his #1 in the country and #1 pound for pound status in tact. They keep everything separated and I dont see how that would be a good fit for the state of Indiana. I personally like seeing all the schools in the same tourney on the Individual side. A side note from talking to all of the individuals is the ones in the higher classes just talk down about the smaller classes and say 'everyone knows 5A is the only one that matters' and I know we say Indiana wouldn't say that, but I think over time it would trickle down and everyone would view the bigger class as more meaningful. Most of the people that were pure fans would only come for 5a and would not care one bit about the other classes. Even if I didn't have a wrestler in the 5A competition and went as a fan, it would be way to hard to watch multiple. My conclusion and my stance after experiencing it first hand (Granted Colorado may be an anomaly) is for the individual tournament for Indiana to stay 1 class, but we need to have wrestle backs at least at semi state and definitely state. I think the class system is perfect for team state, but the amount of people that weighed in that they wish their was a true champion rather than crowning 56 state champions was unbelievable. I think what draws me into keeping it one class is the amount of division between classes there is. I get why they call it 'States' now cause its as if there is multiple different state tournaments going on at the same time and you can't associate with multiple. So even if we class the individual tournament and a small school gets more state champions, they will be a state champ, but most will only be watching the bigger classes anyways. I couldn't tell you one thing about any 2a school in the state of Colorado. Name of the school, names of any wrestlers, how many they qualified/placed, etc. Because it is all separate. And I don't want that to happen to Indiana. I like being familiar with every school. I know chances of making it are harder, but Indiana is a hard state to qualify in. Just my 2 cents. It's mostly theoretical and we would never know until applied. One thing's for sure. I am sure missing that Indiana atmosphere when it comes to the post season.

We started the IHSWCA website at a time when no other Coaches Association had a website. I remember telling JD we need a website and offering to do one. It was rudimentary at best as we began because yours truly knew little about websites (some about computers). I bought a couple of books, and watched some tutorials, and slowly built the site. We eventually added the Discussion Board which I think was the first Discussion Board for any High School sport in Indiana. We had good traffic and lots of discussion, I am pretty proud that we did it and i think it served a good purpose in terms of communication across the state. The individual took a step up then from the old days of compiling them and then printing and mailing them. towards the end the website was getting a bit overwhelming. Joe came along with IndianaMat which was/is a great product. I appreciate that he started it, and still does it.

Oooooooohhhh mannnn I miss the old board, IndianaMat is awesome, but the old board was the wild west at some points.

The EZboard days were the good ole days

Not my greatest wrestling memory but I tell the story of getting booed out of Rec Hall. I was wrestling heavyweight at 205 and lost 6-2 to 2 time AA and MMA fighter Pat Cummins. I was just trying to survive and stalling a lot. I can still here those boos and that wasn't in their strongest years. I'm sure he will one day tell the story because it is a good story. The other funny part of that trip was when Greg Schafer and I were in the van together he said "Sisson I liked you when you were wrestling 184 but the minute you started wrestling heavyweight I hated you. I hate all heavyweights!" My feelings would have been hurt if the giant Mt Dew I was drinking and Doritos I was eating at the time didn't taste so good.

I appreciate the information! How long did it take for ya to break that down?

What a great room last night at the Warren RTC. 60 plus kids. Multiple state medals with kids from Warren Central, Cathedral, Mount Vernon, Martinsville, Scecina, Roncalli to name a few. Some groups had hammers. The group with Chris Stewart, Logan Bailey, Aundre Beatty, Brayden Lowery and Stuart Donlan was probably the most fun to watch... Next week will be prep for folkstyle state, more info coming soon so stay close!

Wow... Cowan is 1 point out of vote in consideration and they are the only tam with 14 returners next year...

Awesome room tonight, lots of state experience in the room. Make it an every Wednesday thing! See you next week...ISWA state week

Pack on 7 pounds of muscle???!!!! That sounds awesome.

So I did a little digging. The furthest advancing senior was eliminated at regionals, and there were three of them. Sean Johnson of Elkhart Central was eliminated by Aiden Sprague of East Noble, LaDonis Williams FW Northside was eliminated by Colten Weimer of Garrett, and Aye Oo of FW Southside was eliminated by Elliot Cornewell of FW Bishop Dwenger. Oo was runner up in the New Haven Sectional, while Williams of FWNS was 3rd. Oo beat him 13-4. Johnson was the 3rd place finisher at the Elkhart Memorial Sectional. How far back will they go to fill the lineup? Oo was 26-7, Williams was 26-9, and Johnson was 31-12.

Until a team comes up with 600 pts, like the 49 Bloomington. There shouldn’t be a an Argument

With my calculations and I’m not math genius they would’ve scored 600. I think.

Yes they can stay

anybody ever think he was just excited he scored on one of the greatest wrestlers of this era? who cares if he did something silly... it's him out there getting hammered and competing not us so who are we to judge?

He did reverse Nolf and he was wrestling up two weight classes, give the kid a break. It was not meant as a taunt, again he was just trying to have fun with the sport (talked to him personally). Also, as someone stated already, he shook hands and was not disrespectful at all.

I think Nick would win. But I realize we’ll never know. I do know that Nick went to Fargo Freestyle Nationals 3 times in HS and won 2 Championships and a 2nd. His only loss was to Zahid Valencia on his first trip. I’ll be anxious to see how Mendez does. I think that’s a fair measuring stick.

@184 Conley gets a 4-1 win over Bisono to give IU a 3-0 lead. @197 Nickal pins Kleimola in :58. Turned a scramble off Kleimola getting in on a single leg into bad position for Jake, then a cradle and a pin about 5 seconds after he got him to his back, PSU 6-3 @285 Cassar wins 11-5 over Fletcher Miller PSU 9-3 @125 Schnupp wins 5-3 over Cronin. PSU 12-3 - Check my prediction to Penn State 37-9 @133 Penn State forfeits. PSU 12-9 INTERMISSION FWIW, the IU student announcer is terrible and has no clue about wrestling... Some of his gems, so far: - Bisono a "late lineup change for Penn St" - Bisono wrestled Friday night and it was well known Rasheed wasn't going to wrestle - Featured Jake Danishek as co-wrestler of the week and experience on IU's team. Mentioned him twice about going at 157. Danishek not in the lineup today. Would think he know his own team's lineup? - described Conley's second takedown as a reversal - described a Conley mat return as a takedown - Cassar's "headset" come loose. He just borrowed Bo Nickal's "headset" - Not a fan of Cassar's footwork - in between Cassar's 2nd and 3rd takedown of Miller - Called Jason Nolf "Jason Dolf - twice when discussing him wrestling Danishek - "Minor decision" by Cassar - Nick Lee from Evansville. Luigs also from Evansville. Probably some familiarity there. lol Back to wrestling.... Nick Lee to the mat