wrestler32

Purple Dog got it done for the area! Great job New Haven Staff, Dave and Owen Doster!  Great job Easton and thanks!

With as much backlash Leavell got this past week, him hitting the homerun, kicking down the wall, and unloading a clip was coldddddd.

I think the team race proved you have to show up in numbers, have your head on right, and survive a gauntlet of tough competition if you want to win it.  Crown Points a heck of a team but it just wasn’t the weekend most envisioned they would have.  No knock on Crown Point as they may have had a couple bad beats but are still a crazy good team. This should really be about putting more respect on just how impressive many of or other individual wrestlers are in this state.  Some have been overlooked due to the shine of these “super teams.” There are lots a land mines to run into at state and Crown Point unfortunately hit a few today.  When the competition is good enough to make matches razor thin then you have to be close to perfect on the day or you are done. Also gotta say I’m very impressed that Brownsburg and even Center Grove never lost faith. They kept grinding and let the energy build for them as the tournament progressed.  CP deserves the Team Dual State Championship, but when thrown in an event against all the individual talent our state has they just couldn’t find a smooth path through in this particular weekend.  The state of Indiana wrestling has shown once again that it is growing stronger. 

How many medals and honors does this family have? I know there are I believe two younger Rioux’s as well? What this family has done is nothing short of incredible. Off the top of my head, Eight state medals, five finals appearances, and now a state title. Props to them, finally bringing that title home

Thank you so much.  If only that Krejsa kid didn't get lucky in their quarterfinals match, CJ could've won it all. 
 
I kid of course.  CJ said Krejsa was the only kid that got faster as the match went on.
 
Edit. I'm really proud of CJ because he fought through adversity at the beginning of the year.  We lost my dad in late October, and he was a massive supporter of CJs wrestling career.  He never missed any my son's matches.

I guess people were right to look at Fort Wayne when it comes to 4s over 1s.......

Do we want the best overall 12 teams or the top 3 teams from each semi state? The numbers are not proportional for around the whole state but the formula does a good job at getting the top level teams  invited

Ok, I’m listening to The Who “ Who are you”
 I love mystery like Scooby Do . I think we should sprinkle in some more details about these keyboard warriors, then go behind the scenes investigating stuff like Inspector gadget. Then be like Dora The Explorer and detailed search for them. Then we can build a few things like Bob The Builder does brick by brick . Then we pin point who, why, when, where like Waldo and find them, I’m going to find that guy on the first time looking for that guy . Almost like finding @Fabio Jr., we can never find that guy anymore but…… at least we know who he is . 
 We’re just trying to figure things out here Trolls . 😂
 
“Who are you … who… who… who… who” 

 
Sincerely… I’m Kenny Powers in real life 😂

I preface my next statement knowing that we only looked at our guys and our regional BUT something interesting one of my assistants found when he had some time on his hands back in the fall...
 
After looking at about 8-9 years of data, he predicted with 100% accuracy our draws for this Semi-State.  While the IHSAA says they are random...they are not.  There is a pattern to them and the pattern he found held true when he was predicting where we would fall.  Obviously he couldn't predict the match ups but he predicted the spots.  
 
It doesn't matter either way, but it's something we thought was interesting given that we are always told it's "Random".  Matter of fact...we are pretty sure the IHSAA used the same formula as last year.  Again, we haven't looked at all cases, but our 120/126/152 quarter brackets are in the exact same spots as last year wrestling the same regional spots.  Those are just 3 examples.

220 at Fort Wayne
Harris vs. Beck, two state medalists.

Before the season I watched one of his matches on Flo, and as an 8th grader he wrestled a hard 6-2 loss to Mitchell Betz at Cadet 160.  Having watched some of Betz's matches in the state series, I was blown away.
 
It is hard to tell who is the best freshman at Rochester, and that is crazy.  
 
Speaking of freshman, that freshman class at North Miami is no joke.  They are going to be a ranked 1A school in a couple of years, if not sooner.

Nice moment of silence at the West Noble Sectional today for Lane

Thoughts and prayers to his family and Eastside HS. I wrestled Lane's older brother Tate a couple times and my brother wrestled Lane frequently when they were younger, they were always down to scrap. RIP🙏🏻

I will stand up for Ethan here. Ethan's 145 is very solid and has proven himself by winning the SAC. The sectional seeds did not play out in his favor because of a loss he had against us early in the season but we then lost to Snider. He has passion for his wrestler which is what a coach should have. So much so he gave me and my coach the what for at the seeding meeting and I totally understood.

I will say this. In the offseason Ethan has constantly contacted me and recommend his wrestlers to go do offseason training. His youth club has about 40 in it this year and last year I believe around the same. He had a little beginner tournament last year for all FWCS schools and local clubs and it went well.
 
Coaching at North Side, Wayne, and Northrop are very tough to get the numbers and keep them and it will need to be from the ground up. We came close to getting middle school wrestling going this year but logistically it just doesn't seem to work. I don't think we have a wrestler shortage all the time we have a huge coaching shortage. Not just at the high school level but also in at the youth and middle school level. Look at what Blackhawk middle school ran into this year. Snider has an established culture that is back on the rise with a very good full coaching staff and support from the top down.
 
I think a possible answer can be recruiting local college grads from Manchester, Indiana Tech, Wabash, and Trine to come back and be willing to sacrifice their time to invest in the youth and middle school. A single High School coach can't do it by themselves. I personally have 2 coaches on my staff that are young and graduated from Indiana Tech. Lost a great one last year to a job change.  It's awesome to see them out on the mat wrestling the kids and doing what they love. Let's bring those graduated college wrestlers into our rooms and mentor them for a year or 2 and get them involved in the youth and middle school side of things.
 
I know I am not saying anything you don't know General. Just wanted to give a shout out to Ethan because coaching can be a thankless job especially in some of the schools that just aren't quite there yet. Ethan is passionate about his wrestler and that I totally understand. I am pretty upset at my 138 pounders seed but we lost a close match at the end that cost us. Tis wrestling.
 

dath fine, but keep tha thpice on tha board an away from kidth..stuff ith dangerouth

I was at middle school state qualifier yesterday. (Plymouth) This 5-8th grade group coming up from Fort Wayne and the Northeast Corner is nails. You pair that with the resurgence of the Peru/Maconaquah regional, Delta’s youth hammers, rochesters youth, etc. and I truly believe we have some bright years ahead as a semi state. (and some really fun days at the Coliseum for the fans)

I’d just like to say this may be the most talented pool of Ft. Wayne wrestlers I’ve ever had to rank in the last 7 years. Top ten really doesn’t do some weight’s depth(113, 120, 195) any justice as there are some very quality kids on the outside looking in. The top ten at 152-170 are absolute meatgrinders that could go plenty of different ways. The gap between being #5 and #10 is so marginal at over half the weights. 
 
Extra shout outs to:
 
The Maconaquah regional as a whole. A few years ago they were the butt of a lot of jokes on this forum, now they’re possibly the deepest of the four. Don’t think people want to draw into that #1 as much as they used to.
 
Freshman, who just seem to keep popping up on the radar more and more each week. I don’t have numbers for proof, but I’m feeling confident that this year probably has the most freshman I’ve ever put in the rankings/on the watch list.
 
Garrett, who seems to have a knack for “upsetting” kids with great resumes this year and giving me an aneurism trying to figure out what to do.

They’ve actually been finalized on my end for over an hour now, Joe said he’ll get them posted in the morning. So technically, no lies. 😎
 
But on the bright side, you’ll be getting a #9 and #10 at each weight now.

Norwell had two starters out, I believe...one for sure,  but that being said, it doesn't mean results change, and yeah, Oak HIll deserved in.  Oak Hill is always solid and will continue to be solid with the continuity in the program.  You'll be back! ... 2a was tough this year top to bottom, which I'm sure didn't make things easy on the rankers/seeders/vote in.
 
IMO it's really hard to seed 2a because of stereotypes, such as "They don't wrestle anybody."  Teams can only control their schedule to a certain extent, with conference by laws.  How do you compare a 20-0 team who has wrestled teams to be perceived as below average, compared to maybe a 15-4 team, who has wrestled a really tough schedule?  It's hard to do.  
 
We've been under seeded, and over seeded.  It happens.  It's a tough job, but I think you all do a great job and I'm happy we have this awesome tournament!  

https://www.zwickjahn.com/obituary/d-paul-gunsett
 
link above to Paul’s obituary. He will be greatly missed. 

Lol okay Dane, the dual meet results are still posted. The Committee messed up in May when Wawasee got in over them. I posted this " Oak Hill comes from a sectional and regional level 4 while Wawasee comes from a level 3. Wawasee does return two more starters with 12 while OH returns 10, but if you run the matches from last year at Team State with no seniors involved Oak Hill wins 39-10. We return zero starters with losing records while Wawasee returns 5. We have an average returning regular season record of 25-6 while Wawasee's is 15-9. Make it make sense....." No one from the committee wanted to give an explanation or some type of reason on why they got in over us and everything was kept hush hush until I finally got a response in a  dm that still did not really answer why Wawasee was given the spot over OH. So if not posting individual results is what actually what kept OH out then so be it  I guess. 

Congratulations to Bryce Lowery from Roncalli for signing with Indiana. Projected to wrestle 157.
View full signing

1A should have their own venue.  Two years in a row we have been in a field house with not a lot of seating.  Causes a lot of issues between fans and it takes away from team seating as well.  Rochester could have hosted and we offered...never even got a sniff.
 
Stop using Track Wrestling.  Use Flo Arena.  It's easier to use and it won't crash.  Every tourney we have attended this year has had problems with TW.  
 
@PMURPH505 Our spotlight is awesome and our kids love it!  We had 1,000 people come to the Western Dual and probably 600+ at the Huntington Dual.  I think it creates a little more than an "alright atmosphere".
 
Congrats to the Marksmen.  Very good team and they had some hammers.  I knew they'd be the 4th seed but they shouldn't have been...at worst they should have been the 2 seed but IMO they should have been #1.  2x defending champs and lost no one...still can't wrap my head around it.  Anyway, I also knew we'd have to wrestle our best to beat them no matter when we wrestled them.  We had our chances but made little mistakes that you can't make against their team.  Our guys battled hard and gave themselves a chance to win, that's all I can ask for.  I was also proud of how our guys responded and wrestled back for 3rd.  Cascade has some hammers and we wrestled well.  One of the hardest things to do in wrestling is wrestle back for an award you didn't want.  Our guys responded! 
 
We love Team State and we are looking forward to coming back next year but we got a lot of work to do to make that happen.
 
 

But hey maybe if OH gets a featured article about them the week of the voting next year they might get voted in;)