horseofadifferentcolor

Thanks everyone for your posts on 1A/2A individual state.  I wanted to thank Ryan Williams, Jamie Welliever and Juan Grino for their support.  Ryan Williams came up with those amazing plaques for the guys and brackets for the champs and brought his expertise, gear and crew.  Thanks Jamie and Juan for hosting and providing a great facility, expertise, crew and putting together amazing tourney shirts.  Also special thanks to all the people at Beech Grove, Southmont and Lutheran who helped run tables, hand wrote out each bracket, and did all the work that makes a tournament of that scale work.  Thanks to my dad who drove all the way up from Tennessee to see this thing and worked a table the entire day.  You guys are awesome.  Also thanks to all the small school coaches who encouraged their kids to come out and wrestle.  Without the support of all these people working together for our wrestlers, that day wouldn’t have happened. 
 
No matter what your feelings are on class wrestling, the tournament was a great day for small school wrestlers.  Seeing wrestlers from Tipton, Beech Grove, Cloverdale and so many other small programs have wrestlers at the top of the podium and win some recognition, fantastic positives!  I have all these great podium pics.  What you see in these guy’s faces is that they had FUN!  If the wrestlers walked away loving wrestling a little more, then we were successful.
 
We used the definition of 1A/2A that the IHSWCA uses for the dual team state.  The tournament was open to over 200 of Indiana’s 300 wrestling programs.  Our promotion of it consisted of two email blasts to the head coaches of those 200 schools and I told every small school we wrestled this year about it.  Year 1, we had wrestlers from 45 programs/clubs.  The competition level was high and that likely surprised a lot of coaches and wrestlers.  Based on the feedback I received so far, I expect this tournament will grow.
 
I think wrestlers came for a lot of reasons.  For some, it was just an off-season tournament and opportunity to get some mat time.  For others, it was another chance, another shot at achieving goals.  A lot of wrestlers who made the podium were guys who lost in regional or semi-state rounds to wrestlers from large schools.  We had several IHSAA state qualifiers there as well.  I know the wrestlers from Lutheran were pumped about it. I had more wrestlers from my program participate in 1A/2A state than participate in our sectional…and I’m not talking JV guys.  We don’t have JV guys at Lutheran.
 
The goal of the tournament was to give small school wrestlers an opportunity to compete on a level playing field, gain some credentials that may help them at the next level, and help grow wrestling in Indiana.  There’s a huge growth opportunity for wrestling in Indiana at the small schools.  My personal motivation was to help keep Lutheran’s wrestling program going.  I’m wanting to “end” the season with an experience that’s much more fun for our wrestlers than the IHSAA state tournament series. 
 
Our sectional is generally a demoralizing experience.  We face 5 huge schools...then add 3 more at regionals.  They have an unfair advantage over us (if you don’t agree that large schools have an advantage, please challenge me on this post).  Getting tanned by big school programs makes my wrestlers think they’re not good, and that our program isn't good, and a lot of our wrestlers wash out and focus on other sports where they are having success…classed sports like football.  And I’m left trying to pick up the pieces each year; set back again and again in my efforts to build a quality room with training partners.  At Lutheran, we need something better than that.  I know I’m not alone.
 
The plan is to keep offering 1A/2A state as a post season tournament.  Those from small schools who see the value in it can come out and wrestle.  Hopefully it will help small school wrestling programs grow and thrive.  I’ll keep you posted if it has that effect at Lutheran.  Hopefully one day the IHSAA and IHSWCA will see the value in it and get behind it.  Thanks again to all who supported it! 
 
Greg Hughes
Lutheran Wrestling

A lot of Indiana based guys get at-large bids:
 
Parker Filius 141
Chad Red 141
Jordan Slivka 157
Gerrit Nijenhuis 174
Max Lyon 184
Donnell Washington 184
 
Did I miss anyone?
 
https://www.ncaa.com/news/wrestling/article/2022-03-08/ncaa-announces-large-selections-2022-division-i-wrestling-championships

Kris Rumph                    Wartburg (Portage)
Jake Burford                  Wisconsin Whitewater (Crown Point)
Alex Barr                        Wabash (Yorktown)
Carlos Champagne       Wabash( Griffith- Marian Catholic)
Jack Heldt                     Wabash (Carmel)
Kyle Hatch                     Wabash (Warsaw)
 
Wishing them all the best next weekend.  

Local 219 films followed Mendez going for his 4th title and Crown points journey to a state title.
 
 
 

Worthen Arena - 11,500

You must eat at The Eagle. It has fried chicken and some of the best sides I have ever had! I go at least once every other week!

Oh the innocence of new site members is so quaint! 
 
Artist's Rendition of class wrestling discussions:

Oh, you’re gonna fit in nicely here.

I’ll just add this to show his character.  When we got in the back tunnel, we hugged.  Told him I loved him and was sorry it ended that way.  His response: “Coach, I’m really sorry.  I know the team needed my points today and next weekend”.   Was tough for me to hold it together to be honest. 

One would think of all people, Dingo would know that. 

Don't know if anyone mentioned it, but we got our state's 2nd and 3rd girl state qualifiers in history, as expected. O'Campo with a fall and a major. Crull with a fall and a dominant decision. Great job, ladies!

I like how you just have to say her first name and people know who you are talking about. 😀

Now that it's tournament time, there are a lot of wrestlers that will not end their seasons the way they want.  It is imperative, that we, as coaches, hold them accountable for their post match behavior, even when it's a disappointing match for them.  I see so many kids throw child-like temper tantrums and are disrespectful to the other wrestler, the referee, the opposing coach, and sometimes their own coach.  We owe it to them to teach them that things in life will not always go their way and that maybe they just didn't work hard enough to accomplish the goal they set out to accomplish.  You know, tell them the truth.  When it is just one individual, I understand, it is probably just the one wrestler, however, when it's the majority of the team, it has to be what is tolerated as a program.  Making good wrestlers is very important to all of us, making great people through the lessons of our great sport, should be the ultimate goal.  Good luck to everyone advancing in the tournament and let's all do our part for the sake of our young people!  

Services is a kid who has also performed great in college. 

*Sam Hansen is long gone, and won't be wrestling at 182.  His baby brother Luke will be at 182 on Wednesday night:-)
 
Just a quick update on Sam, the 2018 state runner-up at 195.  He is in his final year of seminary at Bishop Brute' here in Indianapolis.  He is studying to be a priest in the Catholic church and is completely happy. He'll be spending time and Creighton University this summer and traveling to the Holy Land in May.  When he returns he'll spend the next four years in formation at St. Meinrad Seminary in Southern Indiana.  
 
The sacrifices he made in wrestling were always opportunities to grow closer to God, and I guarantee the homilies that he gives will be filled with stories about growing in his relationship with God through the life-changing sport of wrestling. 
 
Please keep Sam in your prayers as he journeys towards ordination! 

Summitville Goblins

Madison Heights Pirates

MC Elston...Red Devils
MC Rogers...Raiders
 
My claim to fame...I held DelRay Brooks to 18 points... in the first qtr ...of a freshman game. I then knew baseball was my path. 

Congratulations to our friends in the Buckeye State! The OHSAA has voted to sanction boys volleyball and women's wrestling. The sports will be considered as "emerging" sports which carries additional requirements to meet. A big move for Ohio and for women's wrestling in the U.S. I believe Ohio is the 33rd state to sanction. 

So as the tournament approaches, and the topic of this discussion, I got excited and found this video of the most exhilarating 10 seconds of my adult life. I still yell at the screen to LIFT THE HEAD!!! 😆 
vlc-record-2022-01-11-10h41m57s-10241240132_wtohvpth-10241241132.mp4.crdownload-.mp4

Our second year at the event and loved it even more than last year which is a pretty high bar to clear.  We lost more than we won in finishing 8th, but each one of our duels came down to the last match.  Many kids on our roster will never make a deep run in the state series so it is great that they get to take part in something that intense and fun.  It was an incredible time for our kids and hoping we can earn the invitation again next year.
 
Thanks to everyone that had a part in organizing and working the tournament.

Wow, what an event!  Coach Snyder and Brownsburg Athletics did an amazing job.  
 
Both teams lost a team point, so I’d like to think the wrestlers were able to decide the dual in the end.
 
Referees did a great job making consistant calls in such a high level match, and I’m sure we’ll see fireworks again between the purple and red Bulldogs.
 
Plus, where were you when Zeke Seltzer and Jesse Mendez through down at IHSWCA Team State!
 
 
 
 
 

We are happy to be there. Here is our team get together listening to the show live!
IMG_4513.MOV

Silly question.  Everyone knows vampires don’t age.  

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in my job description, but Snyder isn’t very good with the internet.  So I took it over.