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Congratulations to Gavinn Alstott Congratulations to from Floyd Central for signing with Wabash. Projected to wrestle 141. View full signing

Overall I'd think the top seed should be "HAVING A COMPLETE SEASON!"

Coach Joll is retiring from teaching and coaching. He has been coaching for 35 years.

IHSAA - Indiana High School Athletic Association

Rianne is the real deal. In NWI there's a bjj school that easily has the best kids competition team in the Midwest and a national travel team that is top 10 in the country. Saturday classes focus on wrestling and bring in local high school wrestlers, coaches, etc. Bjj is notorious for teaching "guard pulling" and de-emphasizing takedowns, so these kids were blowing away the competition with their wrestling to get the match to the ground. Rianne was among the first in a group of kids there that cross-trained in wrestling who are now making their way into the high school ranks and progressing very quickly. At least three of the placers at girls state got their start with this group. Four or five boys from the same group made it into the EC Semistate. Most of them "pause" their bjj careers in high school to focus on wrestling and will train at RWA and intend to circle back to the bjj after college. The two sports are very complementary and give kids a great sense of body mechanics, mat awareness and make them very coachable. So, even with limited ability to train a lot of freestyle, you'll see these kids get thrown into a tournament and you can literally watch them figure it out after a match a two (you want me to lace their legs and do what?). The college coaches I've talked to notice this and are quick to point out that these are kids who haven't yet "peaked" and still have a lot of upside in a good college program. Rianee was a pioneer in this group and the furthest advanced at having combined the two. I would not bet against seeing her emerge as a strong contender for a spot in the next two Olympic cycles (after this one).

I think the part you seem to be grossly missing is that it's not about next year. Or the year after that. Wrestling, as a funded High School sport, won't die in the next 2-5 years. It's in the next 10+ that it may be in trouble. I think all class wrestling supporters would concede that you're correct, not too many non-wrestlers will suddenly decide to come out just because the tournament is classed and then place that year (though there would probably be a handful). HOWEVER, now we have a situation where success breeds desire to be a part of something. Let's play a hypothetical: Indiana goes 2 classes for this past season and Cael Albaugh of Clinton Central qualifies and places (made it to semi-state this year, won his sectional, so not too much of a leap). Those other Clinton Central Bulldog football players see this about him and think to themselves "That looks fun, I like Cael and I think I could make it that far as well." Not all of them, mind you, but 2-3 of them. The following season, 2 Bulldogs make it to state and place. 3-4 others are in the semi-state. Then 3-4 new kids want to come out, and maybe one of them has a little brother or 2, then suddenly those kids are in club, where they would usually just be playing basketball. This sets up Clinton Central for some long term success that they can point to. In 3-4 years, a small school that has 1-2 semi-state qualifiers every 2-3 years, suddenly has a program that can fill most, if not all, weight classes with competitive wrestlers instead of just bodies. The whole sport is better off for it. Will there be programs that struggle no matter what? Yes. And will this scenario play out at every school? No, for sure, not. BUT, if it happens at 1-2 dozen schools in cycles it helps grow the sport in places it's not been flourishing recently. There will always be exceptions of small school kids that overcome the odds and small school programs that find success. But Geography plays a HUGE role in which of those programs find massive success too. But that's a post for another time.

Unsure why they're charging us (better than at Indy Nats, where they charged us for both the Coaches lanyard ($20) AND for admission ($10), then didn't even bother to enforce having a lanyard for those in the corner...but I'm not bitter) BUT I can say that Mark told me we didn't need to purchase an afternoon session ticket for Saturday, just one to get in Saturday and one for Sunday. Still, $20 to coach them this weekend and $30 last weekend, plus having to have a USAW card and such.....adds up quickly. I for sure don't think that venues and administrators should be gouging coaches who are just trying to help kids.

I don’t disagree numbers of student athletes is decreasing in Indiana in many sports. I don’t believe that anyone has demonstrated any evidence that classing an individual sport will make any measurable change at the schools we are obviously talking about on this thread. If you truly want more high school kids to wrestle, go to the big schools and let more of them compete at the varsity level in state tourney. That’s were kids that want spots aren’t getting them. I don’t want this, but that’s were the numbers are. That is likely only going to hurt small school participants’ chances at individual titles, however. This thread isn’t really about getting more individuals to wrestle, it’s about making small schools, many of which don’t have enough kids either in attendance or with the skills needed to compete with a state placer (ie the measure of success used), and the kids that attend them somehow successful against those that do have the numbers and skills. Since that is deemed impossible for whatever reason (coaching resources, practice partners, competition opportunities), some feel we need to change how success is defined to get kids to fill spots on teams that they don’t currently want to fill for whatever reason—other sports, interests, jobs, etc.—convincing them that they won’t have to compete against those considered to be more skilled individuals. You are trying to offer them a shortcut for success, which doesn’t work. You really can’t compete at high school wrestling as an Individual if you not all-in. You don’t go from not wanting to join the team to place winner at wrestling, or swimming, soccer, or basketball either for that matter, no matter what class they are in. The kids that would “benefit” from classes are the kids that are already participating but finishing their seasons at semi state. Their reward is the title semi state qualifier (or regional placer), a reward that reflects their accomplishment. This is not something everyone can do, and it leaves room for improvement. If all the proposed changes basically give the title of state placer to that same level of accomplishment, it seems a little disingenuous. Kids need to fall in love with wrestling when younger than high school. All those things that don’t exist to the same extent in smaller programs and communities—feeder leagues, clubs, parents and coaches able to attract groups of young kids to the sport, and possibly time and money to find the right competition, etc—are the types of things required to be successful by the time you get to high school.

Few years back the Moran brothers lost a year of eligibility when transferring to Portage from CP. I certainly do not know the entire story of what happened, I was coaching during that time at Portage, and I was more upset that Jonathan lost his senior year because of the block. I don’t know the story behind Penn and C. Carroll, but my view is if they want to move to another district, school or what have you let them. I don’t care what their reasoning is, a state title isn’t worth a kids future in my eyes. Why block a kid from success just to have your head get bigger. It could possibly hurt kids in the long run for scholarships and such just because you’re upset they didn’t want to wrestle for you. Just my opinion, don’t try to pick it apart because you won’t change my mind. -TJ

Is she wrestling in high school? I looked up her middle school state results from 2019. Wow! She had wins over Ashton Jackson, Evan Seng, Dillion Graham, and Toby Billerman... She’s wrestling on the undercard of a Penn State card that features Dake, Snyder, etc. Does anyone have additional information on her? Does she have a background in BJJ or Judo?

By Drew Hughes A Decade Ago After such a great weekend of wrestling at the 2021 state tournament, let’s take a look back at some of the similarities, differences, and other interesting facts about this year’s tournament and the one from 10 years ago. The Bank The first difference between these two tournaments has nothing at all to do with wrestling but the name of the arena. While the tournament is still held in the Indiana Pacers fieldhouse, 2011 was the last year of the fieldhouses original name Conseco Fieldhouse. Since then, the arena has been known as Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Weight Difference The 2011 state finals were also the last year of the old weight classes, after this state tournament is when the IHSAA changed the weights to the ones we still use today. With the changes being 103 – 106 112 – 113 119 – 120 125 – 126 130 – 132 135 – 138 140 – 145 145 – 152 152 – 160 160 – 170 171 – 182 189 – 195 215 – 220 285 – 285 The Bulldogs Junior’s 3rd Title In 2011 the Crown Point Bulldogs had their eventual 4-time state champion Jason Tsirtsis win his 3rd state title. This season with just a 2-pound difference in their weight classes, Crown Point’s Jesse Mendez won his 3rd state title and will be looking to join Jason as a four-time state champ next season. The Potential 3-timer Zeke Seltzer just won his second consecutive title as a junior and will be in the hunt to become one of the next 3-time state champions next year. Similar to this, in 2011 Kyle Ayersman also won his second title as a junior and would go on to be a 3-time state champ. Brothers in The Finals In 2011 twin brothers Doug and Chad Welch both capped off their senior seasons as state champions. While not twins, the Ruhlman brothers of Bloomington South both made state finals appearances, with the younger brother and sophomore Delaney Ruhlman falling to Jesse Mendez in the finals. The older brother and senior Tristan Ruhlman capped off his high school career with a state title. The Welch brothers were only the 3rd pair of siblings to ever accomplish this feat in Indiana. Attendance on hold Due to COVID and the limited in person attendance many had to watch this year’s state tournament from home. The 2011 state tournament brought in 27,999 fans throughout the weekends 3 sessions. Hopefully, Bankers Life Fieldhouse will be filled with fans for the 2022 state championships. View full article

Did I mention that Fielden now owns 3 college wins ever? Make it 4 and it's on to nationals with probably a 4-3 all-time record. Ha! The bizarre season continues.

All this math is making my head hurt Here’s my math to clarify things - if I have 8 pieces of Pizza and I have 8 wrestlers getting ready to wrestle the next day. - I’ll probably get only 4 pieces , cuz the heavyweight will eat 4 too.

BINGO!!

OK Y2, The basis of my debate has been that an individual who attends a large school does not have an advantage over individuals who attend small schools. And I contend that if this is correct than what we should find is that the percentages of elite individuals closely follows the enrollment percentages. So when looking at the raw numbers it is flawed to make the decision to put MD's numbers into the large school data because you think they perform like a large school. The fact is they don't perform like a large school, they perform like an elite school and there are also a hand full of large schools that perform this way as well. Thus in the end it is acceptable that you remove certain outlier schools, but MD is an outlier to 1A not 2A. So below are the raw data numbers with MD's qualifiers, placers & champs in the 1A data where they belong before identifying the outliers that should be thrown out from both 1A & 2A. Enrollment Percentage: 1A - 22.6% 2A - 77.4% Qualifiers: 1A - 23.7% 2A - 76.3% Placers: 1A - 20.0% 2A - 80.0% Champs: 1A - 16.9% 2A - 83.1%

When did it switch that coaches have to have a ticket? In the past, if you had a coach's card, you did not pay. To coach my athletes, it's $30 ????

Sem has a national development program for women's freestyle and they have been kicking butt. Hopefully in the near future all high school girls wrestling will be freestyle to match the college system.

If you look at some posts earlier in the thread, it was established on reliable data that California wrestling participation has been seeing a consistent decrease in participation.

^^THIS^^ At the highest level BJJ tournaments, you must wear street shoes to the bathroom. If spotted not following this rule, you can be disqualified. Similarly, if spotted wearing street shoes on the mat, you can be disqualified. I would even love to see coaches who are on the mats pre-tournament either bring a pair of wrestling shoes or at least be in their socks. Another big difference this year was that fans, parents and siblings didn't have access to the competition floor. This significantly cut down on the number of kids running about on the mats and Cousin Larry showing off the move that worked for him in the 1987 Nowheresville District 2A qualifier. The mats are for the wrestlers.

All the time, energy and money spent assessing these moves could be better spent on other line items. Setup some clear violations for extreme cases (athletes are being paid to play at another school, etc) and maybe investigate those Otherwise, let the parents decide what is best for their kids

How about it shouldn’t matter what the reason is, it should be up to the parents/kids to do whatever is best for their kids. If an Avon kid thinks his best chance at a life changing wrestling scholarship is at Brownsburg, who the hell has the right to deny them that? *Not throwing shade at Avon, just using the Garcia schools as an example.

Way less. And we couldn't even make them shower after practice at the facility because of distancing. I wonder if all the hand washing and hand sanitizing helped eliminate a lot of it.

We are actively seeking the best candidate. Administration is very motivated to help this program continue what we started and continue the climb. See attached vacancy announcement (PDF) Should anyone have questions feel free to contact me directly at # below. Keith Davison 219/617-0034 Chesterton High School Wrestling Coach Vacancy Announcement (Winter 2021) (003).pdf

No speculation needed here. I’m staying a Hobart.

His duck was unbelievable and he could get out from under anyone--but, man, he did not know how to defend. He'd basically trip over himself if you tied up with him. He lost a LOT of tight 21-18 thrillers.

We have a new champion this year.... Correct Picks got everything right! @Shepherddidn't do too badly either. *edit had to fix the two Mike Poppe's. Name: Total Placers Correct 1190 112 Mason Shepherd 939 100 Aaron Hartman 932 101 Joshua Roehm 932 99 Y2CJ41 926 100 Brandon Razo 924 100 Chris Jenkins 922 100 Hunter Stevens 919 99 Nathan Wynn 919 99 Brody Hardcastle 917 98 Caleb Sprunger 917 100 Dan Wiseman 917 99 Rodney Hendricks III 916 98 Brad Clark 914 99 Joe B. Hall 914 99 Ron Allen 912 98 Trevor Young 911 99 Mike Lehman 908 101 Ryan Kendrick 908 97 Kevin Arnett (Navy80) 903 97 irishfb88 902 98 Ron Davis 900 96 Zac Inzerello 898 96 Cheyne Reiter 896 97 Brittany Pompei 894 98 Beaner2 892 101 Brent Weireter 889 98 OG KIRK 888 96 Bigtoe19 887 97 LATE-Kaleb Ellingham 887 100 Andrew Fleenor 885 99 Graig Wymer 885 97 XCard 884 98 Patrick Wilkins 883 96 Hector Mendez 882 96 Santiago Rojo 882 96 Quinn Harris 879 98 Mason Gaines 877 97 purdueisgood 876 95 Thomas Pompei 874 96 Tyson Nisley 874 98 ontherise219 872 95 Curtis Miller 870 92 Erika 870 97 Charlie Euson 869 92 MUSKEE WRESTLER 868 97 Nick Ellis 868 95 Chris Garcia 867 98 Austin Clausheide 866 95 Crey Fish 866 93 Andrew Sams 865 95 John Bigboote 864 96 Bob Sikorski 862 93 Mike Poppe(sbcglobal) 860 97 Mitchell21 860 94 Breyden Bailey 859 93 adam barger 856 93 Lazdaddy 854 95 John Faust 853 93 Mike Poppe(gmail) 852 94 Nicholas Brobst 852 92 Tyler Lanning 852 93 PMFAN 848 93 KEVIN ENGLISH 847 97 Hank P 845 96 Evan Burge(here to dethrone Tyson Nisley) 837 91 donniebaker 833 95 Brady Hersh 827 88 Montie Tomey 825 92 Drew Hughes 824 95 Quale 815 92 Michael Pasternak 800 91 Cody Stafford 788 88 D.Hardcastle 782 90 Gerry Pratt 782 94 JOE BUTTLER 779 90 jeff parkinson 711 76 Ryan Baker 703 75 John Wehr 518 53 Chris cooper 511 52 Dante Colza V 491 51 Caleb Spires1 466 49 Caleb Spires2 393 43 Caleb Spires 254 32 Andrew Huelsman 244 30 Mitchell21-2 243 31 Aaron Hartman1 235 30 Nick Duke Sr. 231 30 ontherise219-2 231 30 LATE-jeff parkinson 179 19 Pierce Wolters 177 16 Eric Evitts 110 13 LATE-Nathaniel Moss 76 10 Cole Armstrong 42 6 gorge 14 2 afe 0 0

Who would it only affect Mater Dei? So the other schools that would have a drastic increase in qualifiers and placers wouldn't be affected? Trying to use the reasoning that one school would get more success to not have classed wrestling is flat out silly.

Six is way too many, each state should have 2 or 3 classes.

Totally misread that and thought you were saying he had 165 TDs in a season he went 11-12, was like HOW?!? Haha

Carroll was a monster! Yes I remember Ben having a ungodly number of TDs.. Averaged almost 10 a match lil

Just came across this picture of Montgomery from Brownsburg talking to Heath from Leo after their match. I know a lot of these guys who wrestle each other are practicing together all the time and it’s amazing to see how much they respect each other. Does anyone else have any pictures or examples of instances like this?

This is truly what this sport is all about. Everyone wants to win, but it's the life lessons you learn and the person this sport makes you along the way that are the real W's! Well done young man, parents, and coaching staff!

So me being the mother of one of his opponents of course I'm going to root for my kid.. But I would just like to say Jesse is an amazing wrestler and even better individual.. Jace did not finish his high school career quite like he wanted do to an injury he couldn't control happened and Jesse by no means had to reach out to him but he did. Jesse I don't know if you will see this but I would like to thank you and congratulate you on your 3rd 1st place finish! We love watching you wrestle and wish you the best in the future!

Seng, Freeman, and Baumann were once on JV team. MD always recharges

Never!!!! 1 champion per weight class. One individual tournament.

This reminds me of a great story back in 2015-16. Yorktown had recruited Dru Berkible to come wrestle for them when he was in middle school. Dru wrestled for Yorktown High School while living in the Frankton district during his freshman year. After his freshman year he decided he wanted to come back to Frankton and wrestle for the district he lived in. Yorktown did not like this so they refused to sign off on him. Once again, He lived in the Frankton district the whole time. The IHSAA got involved and still said no. Now understand, Yorktown's had a history of non-district kids and convenient move-ins (Jackson, Hunt, Curtis, Rutter, Walker, Carroll, Berkbile, Milius twins, Vanhorn....should I keep going???) I can say that I even had one of these young men in class at the time and he explained to me that he had to use one of the assistant coach's rental addresses to become eligible however he was actually spending time traveling from his hometown and also spending most nights at other wrestlers houses for the year. Oh man I could add so many more stories, however, back to the point. Frankton was smart and used the help of a past Eagle wrestler who has since become a successful lawyer and took it to the IDOE. News Flash...the IDOE does not like lawyers and granted him full and immediate eligibility that year. It was a crazy time and one I had to scratch my head about because I had taught and coached football at Yorktown prior to coaching at Frankton. Everyone knew what was going on. Them not releasing him after all the kids they took away from other programs was ridiculous. It was hotel Yorktown, where you could check in any time you wanted but could never check out. In the end, however, Frankton won that battle. Had this young man gotten the help of a lawyer, or maybe he did????, the outcome might have gone in his favor On a side note, thankfully all the administrators and the coaches, except the principal, involved with all the recruiting and unethical behavior are long gone. Yorktown has since hired a great young coach in Jacob Stephenson who is going to do things the right way and worry more about developing wrestlers and a program and less about his coaching record.