WoodJC82

Ref caused freshman Sean Harris from Leo a trip to state.

Just an observation but there always seems to be a lot of whining about “bad” draws. This system has been in place for years and years so maybe instead of whining and complaining about bad draws your kid got, you should create your “good” draw by winning the regional. Winning the regional will create a better odds of advancing, losing will put you at the mercy of the draw we all know this. This is wrestling so quit whining already and wrestle who’s on the line across from you.  In a perfect world we would have wrestle backs but until then, “Just Win”!

I respect both gentlemen for what you've done to grow girls wrestling. I would encourage y'all to work it out offline. Additional public attention to this topic doesn't help the bigger goal of presenting our girls and the sport in a serious light.

You keep mentioning these state champions like they are just everywhere.
 
The thing you fail to realize is that we have approximately 4000 high school wrestlers in this state. Only 14 become state champions, that is .35% if you are good at math. 
 
The people beating the drum of class wrestling don't give a hoot about those 14 kids. Those kids will be successful in the sport no matter what. If we only allow the champs from sectional, regional, and semi-state to advance to state, these guys will likely still win. These guys aren't the ones people are concerned with.
 
What people are concerned with are the 1500ish wrestlers at small schools. What those small school wrestlers represent are people learning the great lessons of the sport. The more people that can participate in wrestling and have a good experience in doing so will be better for everyone. The more kids that participate in athletics at the high school level overall is good for society. Those kids represent the future referees, coaches, wrestling parents, and wrestling fans. If they do not have a good experience in wrestling they will not continue to support the sport and it will die. As shown every year, the forfeits at the small school levels are rising at a steady pace. One of the best ways to help that is to make the playing field level for those athletes. Why would they choose to wrestle when football, basketball, baseball, etc are all classed and they enjoy way more success in those sports? Why work hard, cut weight, get beat up, wear a singlet, etc and have very little success? That's a simple question and I'm sure you'll say something about kids and society being weak, but that's a copout without looking at something as simple as classing the sport.
 
There are 45 other states that have class wrestling, why are we one of the last ones on this boat? It definitely is not making our wrestlers better as we have been hovering in the 10-15 range as a state for 20+ years. Having single class wrestling isn't helping us in participation as we are basically average in the midwest. So at what point do we look at our fancy spotlight and wonder if it is worth it to kill the sport at the small school level?

Lets not forget the middle schoolers and elementary kids
 
MS
Brayden Tanner - 70
Sam Madsen - 75
Elias Faith - 80
Daniel Bazan - 80
Alex Huddelston - 80 (8)
Aiden Carver - 85 (9)
Connor Maddox - 85
Dallas Coomes - 85
Traevon Ducking - 90 (5)
Dallas Rosenbarger - 100
Daniel Brown - 105
Case Bell - 105 (5)
Gavyn Kemp - 112
William Grafton-Hodgetts - 112
Noel Verduzco - 112
Max Benoit - 120
Colin Strayer - 120
Joseph Paun - 120
Gabriel Myers - 128
Jackson Smith - 145
Matthew Staples - 145 (2)
 
EL 11U
Jon Luke Austin - 70
Harry Scott - 90 (4)
Noah Fitzgerald - HWT
 
EL 8U
Blake Wood - 55 (6)
Kendall Benoit - 65
 
 

Lets not forget the middle schoolers and elementary kids
 
MS
Brayden Tanner - 70
Sam Madsen - 75
Elias Faith - 80
Daniel Bazan - 80
Alex Huddelston - 80 (8)
Aiden Carver - 85 (9)
Connor Maddox - 85
Dallas Coomes - 85
Traevon Ducking - 90 (5)
Dallas Rosenbarger - 100
Daniel Brown - 105
Case Bell - 105 (5)
Gavyn Kemp - 112
William Grafton-Hodgetts - 112
Noel Verduzco - 112
Max Benoit - 120
Colin Strayer - 120
Joseph Paun - 120
Gabriel Myers - 128
Jackson Smith - 145
Matthew Staples - 145 (2)
 
EL 11U
Jon Luke Austin - 70
Harry Scott - 90 (4)
Noah Fitzgerald - HWT
 
EL 8U
Blake Wood - 55 (6)
Kendall Benoit - 65
 
 

Lets not forget the middle schoolers and elementary kids
 
MS
Brayden Tanner - 70
Sam Madsen - 75
Elias Faith - 80
Daniel Bazan - 80
Alex Huddelston - 80 (8)
Aiden Carver - 85 (9)
Connor Maddox - 85
Dallas Coomes - 85
Traevon Ducking - 90 (5)
Dallas Rosenbarger - 100
Daniel Brown - 105
Case Bell - 105 (5)
Gavyn Kemp - 112
William Grafton-Hodgetts - 112
Noel Verduzco - 112
Max Benoit - 120
Colin Strayer - 120
Joseph Paun - 120
Gabriel Myers - 128
Jackson Smith - 145
Matthew Staples - 145 (2)
 
EL 11U
Jon Luke Austin - 70
Harry Scott - 90 (4)
Noah Fitzgerald - HWT
 
EL 8U
Blake Wood - 55 (6)
Kendall Benoit - 65
 
 

Lets not forget the middle schoolers and elementary kids
 
MS
Brayden Tanner - 70
Sam Madsen - 75
Elias Faith - 80
Daniel Bazan - 80
Alex Huddelston - 80 (8)
Aiden Carver - 85 (9)
Connor Maddox - 85
Dallas Coomes - 85
Traevon Ducking - 90 (5)
Dallas Rosenbarger - 100
Daniel Brown - 105
Case Bell - 105 (5)
Gavyn Kemp - 112
William Grafton-Hodgetts - 112
Noel Verduzco - 112
Max Benoit - 120
Colin Strayer - 120
Joseph Paun - 120
Gabriel Myers - 128
Jackson Smith - 145
Matthew Staples - 145 (2)
 
EL 11U
Jon Luke Austin - 70
Harry Scott - 90 (4)
Noah Fitzgerald - HWT
 
EL 8U
Blake Wood - 55 (6)
Kendall Benoit - 65
 
 

Or think about how much money would be spent in different parts of the state that normally wouldn't see it?  Does that not count for anything?  Just thinking about the travel distance alone is such a myopic view.  Yeah, traveling would be farther for some and it would be a pain in the ass.  But it's for 2 days.  Does no one north of Indy ever go on vacation to anywhere other than Chicago or Indiana Dunes?  Southern schools travel to Ft. Wayne for Team State.  Kids from that area drive to IHPO.  Hell, wrestling and other sports have been clamoring with the IHSAA to change the travel rules beyond the 300 mile for awhile.  So we can say to the IHSAA "Please change the rule so we can travel farther out of state to tournaments, but don't make us drive a couple hours longer for the freaking State Championship? 

Not to mention, while there is no guarantees, the odds of snow and crappy weather are much less in Evansville that weekend.  

I don't care where they have it, but someone please make an argument that includes more than BS about extra drive time and hotel scores. How bad would it be from the IHSAA's larger perspective to throw a bone to a part of the state that is normally ignored?  No goodwill gained there?  Not everyone is going to be happy.  Period.  But there is a much bigger picture here.  

We all love our own part of the state and Indy and the way it is set up downtown is great to have the Championships.  But it ain't happening next year.    

Lina Lingo - Jay County - Sophomore 

I had the same issue, but once I download the Pacers App then went through that way they were there.

Download the Pacers App, then click tickets which will take you to ticketmaster, sign in there then tickets should show up. That is the instruction given to me and it worked. 

Ok that worked! Thanks. Can't go directly to the ticketmaster app, have to go thru pacers app first, weird. 

I will get to work scheduling wild card weekend if we can get 5 other schools in. 

12/9 we could host in Indy. (We can't schedule earlier than this because of football) 
 
Garrett doesn't look like they have anything
RC hosts a Super Dual
Peru doesn't look like they have anything
Angola doesn't look like they have anything
Glenn hosts a super dual
Southridge has the PAC (might be tough to move) 

Totally understand if coaches don't want to realign their schedules to make this work. We will host/ travel anywhere to earn a wildcard spot. 

12/2 we see Cascade, Owen Valley, and South Putnam. (Maybe Monrovia as well) 
We see Hamilton Heights the following week. 
 
If we can get a chunk of those 11-20 teams to see each other in early December it could help find the best 2 wild card teams. 

If there isn't IndianaMat is buying 5,000 and reselling them!

Anyone know how this All Sessions ticket is going to be purchased if Saturday tickets do not go on sale until after the Friday session?
 

Ticketmaster says tickets go on sale for all session Feb 14th

I personally thought our (Jay) hospitality room food was top notch!

Hey , I want to start by saying thank you to lots of people.
 
I attended the Franklin site last weekend. One of my former coaches was there working all weekend. He once said to me "I don't know how much so and so is getting paid to do this, but it's not enough"
 
I'll tell you that number was probably $0.
 
We have a lot of people that help with a data driven formula, seeding, a rules/ selection committee, selecting/ assigning officials, securing mats, setting up LOTS of things, trackwrestling setup, awards, and now streaming the whole thing. If ANY of these people aren't there helping, I don't know now this tournament continues. It is a huge undertaking.
 
I won't say that the experience is perfect. But we keep aiming to make it better.
 
The goal is to always keep this tournament centrally located. The tournament was setup to sort of bring teams (the best teams is the goal) from all geographical locations. The 1A problem becomes that there aren't many 1A options in the Indianapolis area. And not many 1A options that can field 6 wrestling mats. 
 
Someone on the IHSWCA has continuously asked me to drop 1 and 2 back down to 8 teams. I have not wanted to do that for lots of reasons we have discussed over the years. That in itself limits venues we can go to. Which is why we have done fieldhouses the last two years.
 
We have several people that want the tournament all at one location, but that has been difficult to accommodate.
 
We have several that want the tournament all 4 separate locations. That also raises issues as we spread ourselves too thin with helpers. There's only so many volunteers you can ask for.
 
I do like to read on ways we can improve. I don't think everyone understands the logistics. 
 
I think the faceoff needs to be done before the finals That would be incredible.
As far as the spotlight finals or one match finals. Also a great idea! Brownsburg reached out last year to ask if they could do that, but that meant that the finalists had a double bye. It comes back to asking officials, and workers to stay longer.
 
So there are ways to improve and I'm always interested in hearing how you think we can improve. But it's not always as easy as people think.

Biscuits and Gravy were great! @hogleg's only complaint was that there was no Frank's Red Hot to drizzle on top of it! The pretzel donuts were also quite the hit. 
 
I thought Jay County did a great job hosting. Only having one hotel in town made it difficult for us as I believe they booked over our block of rooms that we reserved about 3 months prior. But the environment was awesome, the announcer was great, and the gym was super loud. This is my favorite tournament of the year and was happy to be a part of it!

I was going to post this last night, but the thread kind of took off on it's own. Anyhow here is the voting comittee and the teams selected/ alternates.
 
Attendance 
Greg Ratliff (Bloomington South, Former IHSWCA President), Dane Fueling (Indianamat Team Rankings Coordinator/Vote Before hand) Sam Riesen (East Noble, IHSWCA Secretary) Jason Cook (Hobart, IHSWCA Vice President) Mike Reiser (Indianamat Rankings Coordinator) Alex Johns (Avon) Eric Myers (Jay County) Josh Holden (Greenfield Central/Abstained from the 3A vote and discussion)
Vote-in spots
4A Perry Meridian Alternate Warren Central
3A Greenfield Central Alternate Columbus East
2A Owen Valley Alternate John Glenn
1A South Adams Alternate Central Noble

We are going to attempt to go FB Live tonight on the Jay County Wrestling Club FB Page, no guarantees but we are going to try it to get it done. 

We are going to attempt to go FB Live tonight on the Jay County Wrestling Club FB Page, no guarantees but we are going to try it to get it done. 

Unfortunately it will not