Ed Pendoski

Are you agreeing that Nosko crushed us in matches that mattered? I'm still not over it, and I think the Portage kid's arm is still stuck in his ear from Nosko's spiral.

But isn't that the argument of why we shouldn't send JV to varsity tourney? If the 1a, 2a, 3a schools don't have a full lineup, I'm sure losing to MD's JV isn't something attractive to the athletic football kid who is on the fence about wrestling or not. The only team that benefits from sending JV to varsity would be the programs in the top 10% and it comes at the cost of the middle/lower class of our state's programs. .....and please don't mention the name Nosko. That guy crushed us in matches that mattered at team state two years in a row! ha!

I wanted to throw an idea out and see what others thought....... I have read most of the 'class wrestling' vs 'one class' discussions here over the years and I can see the pros and cons of both sides of the argument. (I also understand that we coach in the largest school in the state) Right after I started CIA, I remember going to see a big 32 team tourney over winter break to see the finals of kids that trained with us. I remember looking over to mat 4 and seeing the wrestling for 7th and 8th and then my opinion on class wrestling changed. Seeing the level of wrestling for 8th place of a 32 team tourney means that there were hypothetically 24 guys worse than the guy getting 8th. At that moment, my opinion of adding class wrestling moved in favor of starting class wrestling (as long as it keeps our state tourney in Bankers Life...but that's a different story). If smaller schools had a chance for success against other smaller schools, I can only image that they'd go back to school, pronounce themselves as Sectional champions and get some notoriety in the school and making it more attractive for others to participate and hopefully that would help 'snowball' into a more solid program over time. I believe that the top 10 percent of Indiana wrestling is as good as it's ever been in our state's history, and the bottom 10% is still the bottom 10%. What can we do to make sure the 'middle class' of Indiana wrestling is also getting better? Class wrestling could be something that could help. Then my thought went to JV teams wrestling in varsity tournaments. This year Carmel sent their JV to a varsity tourney for the first time. They finished 7th in a 16 team tourney and had 1 champ. We were happy for them to have some quality matches. But if the top 10% of Indiana's teams (I'm definitely saying we're top 10%) didn't send their JV teams to varsity tourneys, wouldn't that leave a place for other teams to have success? ....and if nobody sent their JV to varsity tourneys, wouldn't that mean that we could get better JV tourneys because they would be looking for tough JVs to compete against? I guess my question is that if we all stopped sending JVs to varsity tourneys, wouldn't it open up places for Indiana's 'middle class' programs to have more success? I'm thinking if we all stopped sending JV's to varsity tourneys it would be a baby step towards class wrestling and it would make opportunities to have better true JV matches.

Portage vs LN in Team State semi finals in 04 was: LN 23 Portage 21

Another great Dan Nelson Folkstyle tourney this weekend. We had 400+ and were out of the fieldhouse by 2:30!

The numbers are picking up nicely for our folkstyle tourney on Sunday. Reminder that we are using Madison Block weights. Wrestlers will step on the scale at registration in the wrestling room. We will enter their weights into trackwrestling and they will be placed into 4 man round robin by closest in weight. Let us know if you have any questions before then!

CUSAWC will be hosting our Dan Neson Folkstyle Tournament this Sunday. Reminder that we will be using madison block weights. We will weigh the kids in between 7:30-8:30 and put them in blocks of 4, so doesn't matter if Billy weighs 79.8 or 80.2, because wrestlers will be put in 4 man round robins with guys closest to their weights. Registration is on Trackwrestling here: http://s200.trackwrestling.com/tw/opentournaments/MainFrame.jsp?newSession=false&sport=wrestling&TIM=1483449961065&pageName=&ie=false&frameSize=963 This tournrament is a part of the Gladiator Series and there is some good wrestling going on in the fieldhouse! Contact us if you have any questions! Ed Pendoski 317.701.1512 ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us

No, No, No. I'm going to stop this train right now. It's not awesome and he's not Y2 in training. He doesn't even have an instagram account. His best claim to fame is that he is in direct family linage of the founder of sparkly shorts for the state finals.

Carmel vs Warren Central on Jan 4th at 6:30 @ CHS Carmel Duals on Jan. 7th has Carmel, Merrillville, North Montgomery and Lawrenceburg

So nice to see Clownbaby is back from his Aboriginese training.....I think

Carmel USA Wrestling Club is hosting a small 2 day camp over break on Dec. 20-21 at Carmel HS Blue Room. We will have elementary age group from 9:00-10:30am and middle school from 10:30-12:00am Enter door 21 and fee is $30. We're exciting about opening this to the public. Come spend a couple hours with Coach Welch and Coach Pendoski. It's 80 and humid where we work! Here's a link to the camp: http://carmelusawrestling.org/winterclinic.aspx Contact us if you have any questions: Coach Pendoski ed.pendoski@carmelusawrestling.org Coach Welch doug.welch@carmelusawrestling.org

Carmel USA Wrestling Club is hosting a small 2 day camp over break on Dec. 20-21 at Carmel HS Blue Room. We will have elementary age group from 9:00-10:30am and middle school from 10:30-12:00am Enter door 21 and fee is $30. We're exciting about opening this to the public. Come spend a couple hours with Coach Welch and Coach Pendoski. It's 80 and humid where we work! Here's a link to the camp: http://carmelusawrestling.org/winterclinic.aspx Contact us if you have any questions: Coach Pendoski ed.pendoski@carmelusawrestling.org Coach Welch doug.welch@carmelusawrestling.org

Mr. Welch....not to be confused with Coach Welch or The Chad.

OK, where is Mundell with the exact details when we need him..... That was a pretty special season for Indiana wrestling and here's the way I recall that season. Portage and Hobart was in the Harvest Classic that year and I believe Portage came out on top, but it was crazy close..and there was a fight in the bleacher between the parents of each school. The die hard region guys can tell you that family names of both teams knew each other for years (some good relationships and some bad....but still with region tension between them!) The dual that season was at Portage. We split matches 7-7 and Hobart ended on top by 1 and six of the 14 matches were decided in the last minute of the match. It took me a couple days to get over losing and I though to myself, "that was the best dual meet I've ever seen". Then we wrestled Hobart in the Team Regional at CP. Again the dual came down to the last match, teams split matches 7-7 and I think 10 of the matches were decided in the last minute. It took me a couple days to get over losing and I thought o myself, "ok, THAT was the best duall meet I've ever seen". I watched the team state dual between EMD and Hobart. Couldn't believe that Hobart was for sure going to knock out invincible EMD and then watched the crazy ending of that dual...in that environment. It only took me 10 seconds to say, "OK, I'll never see a better dual meet than that one" ...not sure if I have.

#19 LN is at Carmel Tuesday