teammills

Now you know I how felt when Miranda weighed in at 106 Ty's freshman year at our Dual... I was like, well... let's get it on! No where to run, no where to hide! It set the tone for the next 3 years, wrestle the best and see where you shake out! I'd bet we get 3 NCAA Champs from Hendricks County: 125 - Hudkins, 133 - Garcia, 141 - Mills (just don't tell the Red and Lee kids about our plans!)

Asa got it done when it mattered the most... the battles between Ty and Asa were both awesome and gut wrenching as a parent. Those two were battle tested when it came time for the State Series and it shows with their results. Neither had any fear when we saw each other in the Dual, County, Conference, Sectional, Regional, Semi-State and State! @TeamGarcia and I would just smile at each other win or lose because there is no better way to get better than to see that type of competition week in and week out. Do I wish a couple of those red rings were blue, absolutely... but I am extremely proud of those two boys since seeing them battle it out when they were 7 or 8 in the CWA room, partners in MS and rivals in HS! Congrats to Asa and his family on an awesome HS Career!!! Now, we're gonna prepare to flip the script when it comes time for the NCAA's!!! 😃

Ty is red-shirting this year at 133/141, but 2 days before their first Open of the year at Virginia Tech he got banged up. He's still recovering and may end up with a medical red-shirt this year. He's been able to get a little practice over the past few weeks, but still showing symptoms of his injury and not fully cleared yet. Jeremiah was ready to battle it out this year at 133, down from 141 last year. However, he sustained a pretty severe concussion around the same time Ty went down. He's been recovering from it since and I'm not sure if he'll be cleared after break or not. At this point, Duke is FFing 133, so I wouldn't be surprised if the first healthy one gets inserted into the line for the Dual schedule. Regardless, Ty is loving the environment and I think found the perfect fit of academics and athletics. I'm excited to see what Coach Lanham continues to build in the ACC!

Congrats to Carson... very tough kid and well deserved! Good Luck!

Wow... we're very humbled by the recognition Ty's received this week. Without all the folks involved with the Dream Team Classic, all of this would have never been possible. While the recognition is nice, I don't want it to overshadow all the other great matches of the night. Every Indiana kid out there battled their hardest and it's awesome that a week later, this event is still being talked about. I think Brayton won the popular vote for this award and so we don't want to undercut him, but it's awesome that the Brownsburg program had 2 wrestlers in contention for this award. Thank you to all the coaches who's helped him become the wrestler he is today.

I just want to thank Joe and all the other people that put the time and effort to bring this event to Indiana and give our state the publicity it deserves on a National level. All of our wrestlers were very impressive and put up a great fight against the top kids in the country (win or lose). I appreciate Team USA coming to Indiana with a "nothing to gain, but everything to lose" situation. Ty was able to capitalize and take out his opponent and has gotten a flood of national publicity. Without all the work that was put into this, he would have not had this opportunity. We found out yesterday that he was named the National High School Wrestler of the Week by TheOpenMat. https://news.theopenmat.com/blog/2018/04/16/adidas-high-school-wrestler-week-apr-16th-2018/

Ty ended up 6th... kinda fun not cutting and realizing almost everyone he wrestled was at 132 or 138 during HS season! Gotta get ready for next year at 133 though! Great job by all the IN wrestlers!!!

Now we get an ACC preview for next year! Mills, Duke vs Camacho, NC State Gonna be fun!!!

Several coaches that we talked to during recruiting didn't put a lot of value into the placements of our tournament. Obviously, the champ is the champ and deserves the attention as it's one of the toughest State tournaments in the country, but the fact is our placements really aren't true placements without wrestlebacks. I'm not trying to open Pandora's box, but more than one coach mentioned how dumb a first round match of Colton Cummings vs Alec White was last year (the year before it was Triana vs Cummings in SS Blood Round). One has to win and one has to lose, but the fact that the loser can't come back to place seems absurd, Of the 2 coaches we talked with who actually came to our State tournament, each watched Friday night and then left on Saturday morning for the Illinois State Tournament. Their reasoning was they preferred to see more kids wrestle in a State with class wrestling, than the limited bang for the buck in our State. Everyone said our State tournament environment was awesome, but no one liked our State's format. I'm not trying to turn this into a 25 page topic, but that's what we heard straight from multiple D1 coaches. Let the debates begin...

Luckily, we have wrestlebacks a Semi-State, so the best will get through regardless.... whoops, I was dreaming! Oh well, embrace the grind, some very good wrestlers are not going to get to punch their ticket to State. This is among some of the reasons college coaches have told me they don't waste their time with Indiana's state tournament.

They both went down with the Flu last night. It's been going through the team and finally caught up to them yesterday evening. Ty felt great yesterday up until about 10pm and starting feeling bad and then looked like death this morning when he was getting up. Rather than try to struggle through the day and risk spreading to other kids, I pulled the plug on his day. It's been a rough few weeks, so hopefully the rest of the season will go smoother after this. Good luck to the rest of the wrestlers out there competing today!

Evansville 126 will be fun too... you'll have Rooks, Garcia, Mills, Denny, Cash, etc. Should be a great year with those boys being battle tested come state time!

Coach McCormick will certainly be missed in the wrestling community. From holding the PrimeTime Wrestling Camps to hosting the MS State Duals, he always seemed to be trying to improve the quality and opportunities for the wrestling kids in Indiana. We have typically been in the opposing corners and he has always been competitive, yet respectful. Ty was able to be part of his team this Fall in PA and we got a chance to be in his corner for once. He is a total class act and you can really tell he does it for the kids and not for his own ego. Best of luck to the Yorktown team this year and whatever comes next in life.

Congrats to the Combest family as well. There will likely be several more Columbus East wrestlers having their opportunity to wrestle in college, they have built a great program over the last few years.

Thank you for all the kind words and support for Ty. We were very blessed by the opportunities that were presented to him, but we couldn’t be happier with his choice of Duke. We both knew after our first visit, that’s that place he wants to be. The coaching staff has many Indiana ties and after listening to what Coach Lanham is building, it was like the stars aligned . We watched Coach Wissel wrestle with Purdue versus Penn State at the very first Indy Nationals at Conseco Fieldhouse when Ty was a Bantam and watched Coach Nelson wrestle many times in both HS and College. Ty’s hard work on the mat and in the classroom, has opened so many doors for him, we could not be prouder of what he has accomplished so far. Hopefully, the combination of Ty and Jerimiah Reitz will anchor Duke’s lightweight lineup for the next 4-5 years.