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Thank you decbell1, On Portage's team page, I was not able to add our results to the Traicoff for some reason. Thanks again! -Pat Wilkins

Portage High School will be hosting RTC on Wednsdays from 6-8pm starting tomorrow (2/29). Practices will be in the wrestling room. Enter through the East side of the building by the Gym.

Portage 33 Lake Central 15

Varsity 77-0 JV 84-0

71 PA district 1 rosters That's only 1 district, but 51 out of 71 schools sure doesn't seem right for PA.

Coach Peck, I don't think facilities would be too hard to come by. Some AD's out there would be smart enough to realize that hosting a "State" Tournament without having to turn in ALL their ticket money to the IHSAA is a GREAT idea. But this brings us to another point......would the host site(s) have to turn in money to the IHSWCA or just keep the profits? Things to think about. -Pat Wilkins

Karl, the IHSAA will support an IHSWCA run mid-season dual tourney because the IHSAA will not be paying for it or running it. So they get the wrestling community off their back by allowing an exemption to the number of weigh-ins to allow us to host and run our own state dual tourney with no strings attached to the IHSAA. Pat Wilkins Portage High School

Portage's missing results: Portage 80 Dusalbe (IL) 0 Portage 75 St. Ignatius 6 Portage 55 Brother Rice 16 Current record 6-5 (1-1) DAC

My AD is out of town, I have not received the survey and would like to fill it out. Please e-mail it to me at pwilkins@portage.k12.in.us Thanks, Pat Wilkins Head Wrestling Coach Portage High School

I am not telling you to sell the idea about winning team state. I'm saying we all need to sell the idea of team success. Success means different things to different people and it may vary from year to year. What you want your kids to think team success is, is up to you and the school's coaching staff. As far as your Team Regional opponents situation goes, I'd say that we are in a similar situation. This past year we lost to Crown Point twice before team regionals and Merrillville kicked our butts. We also knew that if we did win we would've had to face Mishawaka 1st round of Team State. Mishawaka beat us by 20 or so earlier in the season. Yet another reason for our guys to potentially give up at Team regional. We could have easily let the wrestlers concentrate on their individual success and say let's pack it in and forget about the team regional. But we didn't allow it. We tried our best to plant the seed of "what-if". What if we pull off the upset? What if this guy wouldn't have got pinned, what if we bumped and put in Johnny who fights like hell, but isn't very good? Maybe he can pull something off! What if they're having an off day? What if someone misses weight, or is sick? You never know with high school kids. Stuff happens that could make up some pts. But, did all our selling work? In the W-L column it didn't work, but what we saw out of our kids that night shows us it infact did work. We lost to Crown Point by 7pts (our closest margin of defeat in our 3 duals). Also, just to clarify.......I don't have the answers that are specific to your situation, I'm just a person who likes a challenge and likes to find the positive in things instead of the negative and that comment about kids not having fight bugged me.

"There isn't much fight in kids if they have little chance for success." Quote from Y2. WOW is all I can say after reading that comment. Coach Struck makes a great post detailing how he motivates his TEAM to be successful and this is what you come back with. WOW. I had a 171 freshmen who was 2-17 last year. The dual against Carmel comes down to him. He gets beat by 13 pts, but we win the dual meet because he didn't get teched or pinned. When the ref blew the whistle at the end of the match he raised both his hands like he had just won a state title! EVERYTIME this kid took the mat he had FIGHT! Whether it was an individual tourney or a dual it didn't matter. It's all about how you sell it Y2. You can continue to be negative towards the idea of TEAM success and how to achieve it, but it comes down to us, the coaches, being good salesmen to pitch an idea about team success that can change the mindset of a community. The quesiton every one of us has to ask is if we CAN and/or WANT to do it. "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opporttunity in every difficulty."-Winston Churchill Pat Wilkins Head Wrestling Coach Portage High School

Hold all the conspiracy theory stuff. Jim Peters asked me if Sean wanted to wrestle in the Bragging Rights event. Based on a conversation Sean and I had after his state finals match and without me double checking, I assumed Sean didn't want to participate. So the Times is not at fault this time. -Coach Wilkins

I just read the winter bulletin and it says you can weigh-in a maximum of 28 wrestlers for the team series. It does not say anything about the number of entrants allowed on your sectional entry list. Plus, injuries can pop up between due date of entry list and the team series. It makes sense that you could enter as many kids as you want.

Portage 72 Richards (IL) 9 Portage 51 Brother Rice (IL) 19 Portage 81 St. Ignatus (IL) 0 JV Scores: Portage 57 Richards 18 Portage 36 Brother Rice 15

Varsity: Portage 57 Chesterton 14 JV: Portage 57 Chesterton 15

THANKS to everyone that helped us out Sunday. I think it was obvious we were not expecting 580 people and we were still able to get out of there at a decent hour! Thanks to all table helpers, referees, and pairers!!!!!! Without all the help we wouldn't have made it through the day. As far as officials go, it's food for thought. Thanks, Portage Coaching Staff