maligned

Jose Diaz, Gannon, in D2 and Evan Burge, Wabash, in D3 also qualified.

I saw Streck, Blubaugh, Mejia in D2 and Gavin Layman, Joey Langeman, Jesse Herrera, Cole Cervantes in D3. Am I missing 1 in each division?

It's very easy to exploit in terms of getting a timeout, but they put pressure on wrestlers to get back to wrestling quickly and will hit cautions quickly if they are dragging. They're also quick to award a point to the other wrestler for repeat stoppages, even though the way the rules are written make it seem easy to get multiple timeouts or long timeouts. This is from the rules: "If a wrestler is clearly injured/bleeding, the bout must be stopped immediately, and the wrestler must be attended to by medical staff. Coaches are allowed to attend to the injured or bleeding wrestler but must not interfere with the medical staff or use the time to coach the wrestler. The unaffected wrestler must remain on the mat at all times but can be attended by coaches. The medical staff will determine bleeding management versus injury time and take appropriate actions. Bleeding time is limited to Four (4) minutes from the time the medical staff declares bleeding time. If the bleeding time exceeds four minutes (4) the bout is awarded to the opponent as a medical default. Clean-up time is not considered part of the Bleeding time. Injury Time is unlimited if the medical staff requests the time and the referee grants the time. The medical staff must determine when the injury is assessed and recovery time is completed. If the medical staff allows the wrestler to continue, the wrestler must be instructed that any additional stoppage for this injury in the bout could result in a point being awarded to the opponent in the 16U categories and older. It is the refereeing team’s discretion to award a point to the opponent for an athlete who repeatedly stops the match for injury management. Medical staff will only serve to assess and treat injuries and determine if a wrestler can safely continue in the match. The coach may not request recovery time and abuse could result in the refereeing team issuing a yellow card. " Again, it seems willy-nilly, but because the medical staff could unilaterally stop the match; guys are usually quick to get back going and show they're ok. Also, like I said, they don't allow them to drag. So if a guy keeps dragging, he either takes a second injury and risks getting hit with a point or getting the match stopped by medical staff--or he doesn't take a timeout and risks getting hit with "caution and 1" penalties. So there's less abuse in the practical application than the "unlimited" time makes it seem. But there's no stopping a guy whose engine is less than his opponent from crying out in pain late in a match, taking a minute to recover, and gaining another burst of energy.

I just know that Gomez is always explosive in spurts but can fade. He came out blazing at the beginning, post-break, and post-injury timeout when he hit the 4-pointer. I think getting put to your back like Nick did always takes a lot out of you mentally and physically, especially late in a match. In retrospect, I'm sure Nick would say he was a little rattled and should have taken a moment to gather himself physically and mentally, instead of launching blindly into all-out attack mode with a minute still left.

For D3, it was a rough regionals in terms of advancement for Manchester and Trine, and most of the Wabash qualifiers aren't native Indiana kids. List of D3 qualifiers from Indiana looks like this ( I think!): Gavin Layman, Ohio Northern (Chesterton) Joey Langeman, Trine (Carmel) Jesse Herrera, Wabash (Highland) Cole Cervantes, North Central (Griffith)

I think it's just the three highly ranked Streck (Central Oklahoma, Merrillville), Blubaugh (UIndy, Bloomington S.), and Mejia (McKendree, Elkhart Memorial [RIP])that got thru to nationals in D2. Is that right? Those 3 are title contenders, but some bad luck for most of UIndy's Indiana natives that were potential AAs. Mulkey, Combest, Gray all miss out for different reasons.

1995 Leavell sucked down to catchweight 147 vs 2024 Leavell

If nothing else, I'd guess he'll be in by summer when seniors drop off.

Jonathan Kervin is a national champion! Coming in as the #3 seed at 165lbs, facing the #4, he wins the final, 10-5, after being down 4-0 early in the 2nd period. Calhoun falls, 5-4, in his final at 174.

Jaquan ends up 6th at 174. Great showing for the IHSAA third placer from last year

Most of these guys won at least a match. Jaquan East won a couple tight consolation matches to get to AA status. Congratulations! He'll compete for 3rd to 8th today.

Kervin also got into the finals! He and Calhoun will wrestle back to back at 165 and 174 in the finals on ESPN+ tonight.

Caution and 1 for leaving the mat. There's always a step out point when you're not trying to go out. But if you just leave like that, it's a caution and 1 on top of it. Like the technical violation in folkstyle, but much stricter in its application.

Walker, Critchfield, Erb, and Wagner will wrestle in the blood round tonight, attempting to join Calhoun and Kervin as AAs.

Tragically, Lee gets outscored 18-2 by Austin Gomez after owning a 10-4 lead and ends up teched. This is the 3rd straight Olympic cycle at this weight that we are taking a shocking loss and not qualifying this weight. Zane Richards moves to tonight's semis against Darian Cruz at 57kg.

After Day 1: Woenker, Kervin, Critchfield, Calhoun into the quarters. Need to win one of their next two for AA status. Erb, Wagner, Beatty, Rodgers into Consi R3. Need to win next two to podium. Tech in 14th. Marian in 24th. 184 Chandler Woenker Campbellsville, 2-0 125 Jeffrey Bailey Cornerstone, 0-2 157 Elijah Chacon Indiana Tech, 0-2 165 Jonathan Kervin Indiana Tech, bye & 1-0 174 Landon Buchanan Indiana Tech, 0-2 197 Nathan Critchfield Indiana Tech, 2-0 285 Braydon Erb Indiana Tech, 2-1 133 Anthony Hughes Marian, 0-2 141 Logan Wagner Marian, 1-1 149 Aundre Beatty Marian, 2-1 149 Seth Johnson Marian, 0-2 165 Elliott Rodgers Marian, 2-1 174 Noah Hollendonner Marian, 0-2 285 Excell Brooks Marian, 0-2 174 Graham Calhoun Southeastern, 2-0 125 Adonis Boyd Cumberlands, 0-2

Yeah, I do mathematical modeling too. And I've seen the results of all of those tournaments in the data. On a math level, the side to play for an over/under of 1 AA from 400 collective attempts from those specific guys is a little over 1.

Kayla gets it done! She beats the Venezuelan, 3-0, this time. Now she "only" needs to win the Trials and she's into another Olympic Games! Parrish at 53kg also qualified the weight for us. It's only Amit Elor, possibly the best female wrestler on the planet, needing to qualify 68kg that's left (she's emerged the last 2 seasons as an unbeatable force at 72kg, but cut down for the Olympic year..our other rep didn't qualify 68 at Worlds).

Kayla Miracle is about to go on the mat in her semi-final match to attempt to seal United States qualification of a slot at 62kg. She has the rising young Venezuelan that we'd expected she'd face. Again, she beat her last week by pin in 4:30, but she was trailing, 5-4, at the time. Our girls at 53 and 68kg are also in the semis. We previously qualified the other 3 weights. We also qualified 3 of the 6 weights yesterday in Greco, losing a couple tough ones and picking up a huge upset in the one weight I thought we had no chance.

One more thing to get further into the weeds on this (ha!)...guys with his squatty body type that win world freestyle titles tend to have an upper body game that forces proximity. Think I-Mar domestically with a constant underhook (or Yazdani from Iran, although he's not as squatty physically). Or they'll force proximity and danger through arm tie/foot sweep/throw series that don't have great payoff in folk style because of their low success rate (and therefore tend not to get developed by our guys).

I don't think it's an effort or fear thing. I just don't think he's ever developed an outside game. If you watch him against elite freestylers, where hand fighting is everything, they bog him down in close. Or they're elite athletes (like his 2 losses at NCAAs last year) that keep him at their distance and cherry pick a shot or two. In both scenarios, he can't get off the launching pad for his in-close straight-on shots, ducks, or high-c's. He doesn't have anything dynamic at far outside angles or from space. (We're obviously only talking about the elite of the elite where this comes into play. He's got plenty of horsepower and offense for all but 1 or 2 guys at NCAAs and for matching up against almost all of our freestylers domestically. He's also capable of beating even some of the elite globally at times because of his engine, effort, defense, and positioning.)

Based on the specific landscape of each weight class, I'd guess Mendez and Davison slightly higher than the regression spit out and Allred, Rooks, Lee a little lower. I'd also guess that Washington/Boarman/Baumann/Sollars would collectively earn more than 1 AA slot every one hundred years.

Yes, their depth of talent is very, very high. They don't have the "per capita" talent that we do. We're more of a "wrestling state" in terms of how many kids we develop relative to our population--but California's population is so gigantic. They produce a LOT of good kids.

His offense has a ceiling. So when he faces someone with world class attacks like Vito with similar defensive ability, he struggles to keep up. I don't think he can win that match.

The event starts today with Greco, where we haven't qualified any of the 6 weights yet. To qualify the 6, we're significant favorites in 2 weights, slight favorites in another 2, a coin flip in one, and heavy underdogs to a Cuban in one. We never qualify all the Greco weights for the Olympics, but we should get 3 to 5 today.