Boot

One more thing I should say before someone else does: This is just based on underclassmen last year. There are and always will be great underclassmen we don't see until their senior year because of even better upperclassmen around their weight in the same school. There are always the guys who never got to wrestle varsity until their senior year and get to state. This is only a rough estimate based upon the returning Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors this year. There will be good freshmen, there will be good dark horses.

I don't know if I would say more time, just too many sleepless nights where my mind turns to wrestling. I ran out of papers to grade and lesson plans to tweak, so I started running numbers. My wife tends to think it's a sickness, I like to think of it as passion for the sport.

I once again couldn't sleep and found myself looking over the state results from last year. There was a lot of underclass talent, so I started looking at where they came from. I broke down the returning underclass state qualifiers, placers, and top 4 and ranked sectionals, regionals, and semi states based on who was returning. Surprise, surprise, the Crown Point sectional has the toughest road. I assigned 1 point for a qualifier, 3 points for a placer, and 5 for a top 4. Here they are: Sectionals Rank, Sectional, Qualifiers, Placers, Top 4 1. Crown Point, 6, 5, 3 2. Lawrence Central, 6, 4, 2 3. Mishawaka, 7, 3, 2 4. Mooresville, 5, 3, 2 5. Calumet, 4, 3, 2 6. Evansville Central, 6, 3, 1 7. LaPorte, 4, 2, 2 7. South Dearborn, 4, 2, 2 9. Hamilton Heights, 3, 2, 2 10. East Chicago Central, 3, 3, 1 11. Fort Wayne Carroll, 4, 2, 1 11. Warren Central, 4, 2, 1 13. Delta, 8, 2, 0 14. Castle, 5, 3, 0 15. Elkhart Memorial, 3, 1, 1 16. Lafayette Jeff, 4, 1 17. Northview, 6, 0, 0 18. Oak Hill, 3, 1, 0 19. Jay County, 5, 0, 0 20. Peru, 2, 1, 0 20. Shenandoah, 2, 1, 0 20. Decatur Central, 2, 1, 0 23. Jennings County, 1, 1, 0 23. New Haven, 1, 1, 0 23. Zionsville, 1, 1, 0 26. Avon, 2, 0, 0 26. Jeffersonville, 2, 0, 0 28. Crawfordsville, 1, 0, 0 28. Plymouth, 1, 0, 0 28. Southridge, 1, 0, 0 28. Twin Lakes, 1, 0, 0 32. Westview, 0, 0, 0 Regionals Rank, Regional, Qualifiers, Placers, Top 4 1. LaPorte, 10, 7, 5 2. Pendleton Heights, 9, 6, 4 3. Calumet, 7, 6, 3 4. Castle, 11, 6, 1 5. Rochester, 8, 3, 2 6. Mooresville, 7, 3, 2 7. Richmond, 6, 3, 2 8. Perry Meridian, 6, 3, 1 9. Jay County, 13, 2, 0 10. Fort Wayne Carroll, 5, 3, 1 11. Peru, 5, 2, 0 12. Goshen, 3, 1, 1 13. Bloomington South, 7, 1, 0 14. Logansport, 5, 1, 0 15. North Montgomery, 2, 1, 0 16. Jeffersonville, 3, 0, 0 Semi State Rank, Semi State, Qualifiers, Placers, Top 4 1. Merrillville, 30, 17, 10 2. Evansville, 23, 12, 5 3. New Castle, 28, 10, 3 4. Fort Wayne, 26, 8, 2

I would think you would know a little about him yourself since every single post you have, except sarting one thread, has something to do with Thomas. I think we could aways let the season play out a little before the hype train get going to fast for any of the wrestlers this year. Capital City Classic should be a good place to gage where he and many other decent wrestlers are at the start of this season. I dont even have a kid wrestling this year in the CCC, but I am looking forward to going there to see some great wrestling at the start of the season. When is it this year?

Who is the new Portage coach?

It was, about a day earlier I had posted the same thing.

It's going to come down to who worked harder in the offseason, and everyone knows MD always works hard. After tasting success I suspect Castle is going to kick it up some, so I would say Castle/MD is poised to be a good rivalry. Reitz is another solid team, but I see them getting third. Prediction: The SIAC will end up a lot like the Lawrence Central sectional, 2 powerhouse teams and lots of other great talent making for a very tough trip to the top.

Amazing, great job!

Last year the 119-130 range seemed like a very stacked weight class, what are the predictions for any powerhouse weights this year, or if there will even be any?

Works great until you get her state for her birthday present the week after. Who the heck decides to be born during state finals weekend and then doesn't want to watch wrestling all weekend long? Actually, for our first date I took my wife to state. I knew she was a keeper when she didn't dump me and we got married a couple years later.

I have to ask, wouldn't that just be you and other peoples' wives? I read that and just had to laugh.

Anything you say can and will be used against you.

I don't know who Indian Creek's coach is, but the past few years they've really stepped it up. I would agree with that 100%. Throw Pioneer and Muncie Southside in there as well though. Hobart and Merrillville are also really solid teams, but the region is so tough I just don't see them getting to team state.

Harper has a great presence and really brings people out, he helped get wrestling going again at Benton Central after a couple of previous coaches had destroyed it. I wouldn't doubt he could get that many kids interested.

Seems like it might need more publicity and support in Indiana then. Indiana boys seemed to do well last year.

All I found for Preseason Nationals were Jacob Tonte and Jordan Naughton from Perry. There seemed to be quite a few last year based on the results, was it quality enough to bring people back?

From the sounds of it the Pats could have used him this weekend. 10 TDs, no INT? That's impressive.

Good to hear. I was starting to worry that Jarman took the program with him. Manchester will never die as a wrestling school, with Jarman leaving there was a lull in recruiting, as there usually seems to be with small programs in a turnover. They got a solid recruiting class this year, I'm excited to see where things go.

Congratulations, he'll get a great education while he's there. I may be biased since it's my Alma Mater though.

Was it a requirement to be from the Indy area?

Who you practice with makes all the difference, Alex was a strong wrestler and those who got to practice with him a lot during that time all got much better. If you remember, Griffith had a cluster of kids at state all around Alex's weight. I can understand why kids transfer to have better partners, but if it's not for academic reason then technically the IHSAA outlaws it. It will be interesting to see if the voucher program completely neuters the IHSAA's authority.

Are they still there? No, they've graduated. Unless Alex quits his job and Angel gives up his wrestling career at IU to come back to Griffith to help out Jason, people just need to shut up about this subject. He lives in Crown Point, so should he go back to Griffith and wrestle illegally there to make you all happy? Ease up, I made a joke. Someone said Griffth USED to have some good wrestlers.

There was that Alex kid and I remember something about an Escobedo...

Something isn't right there, it was 53 this morning. Will you still be lending your expertise on the mat? I wrestled for Benton Central by the way and I had always assumed Pioneer was a bigger school than us based on the quality of wrestlers. I hope whoever has taken over the team keeps up the tradition.

Exactly why I turned down their grad school offer, I went and visited in January. What took you up there anyway, I never heard?