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Holy crap. That literally took me almost two whole days to get through. Hope y'all enjoy them. I threw together some final predictions and some numbers based off my predictions on here. Top 5 teams 1. Cleveland (10 medals, 3 finalists but I didn't have them winning any weights. I'm sure that will end up being wrong) 2. Wilson Central (6 medals, 1 champ) 3. Beech (5 medals and 3 champs) 4. Science Hill (5 medals, no champs) 5. Knoxville Halls/Summit/Soddy Daisy/Bradley Central (4 medals and 1 champ each) I'd bet my team scores are probably a little off. Best Match: All of the finals I have are great matchups. If I had to narrow it down to one lightweight and one upperweight I'd have to pick.. 106- Trey Bates (Beech) vs Trae McDaniel (Cleveland) and 195- Devon Gibson (Bradley Central) vs Nathan Walling (Mt Juliet) Most Outstanding Wrestlers: Lower: 120-Brayden Palmer (Beech) Upper: Hwt: Michael Kramer (Wilson Central) I'm ready for some wrestling. I'm positive most of my picks will be off but hey, that's what makes it fun. Anybody can win on any given day! See you at the cow palace! Side note, if anybody disagrees with me and wants to yell at me to my face for past events ill be in the Summit section probably chasing around my two kids. Come on over!

Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2018 9:45 am By PATRICK MacCOON Before embarking on the first wrestling season ever at Polk County High School, volunteer coach Angelo Giansante traveled up to Cumberland College in Kentucky to make a dream possible. The head park ranger at Hiwassee/Ocoee State Park, who is the only state champion wrestler ever from La Vergne High School (1997), was excited to get the program off and rolling. “We found our mats we practice on via a Craigslist add and took out a loan to go buy them,” said Giansante, who is also a military veteran and a 2012 Hall of Fame inductee to Middle Tennessee State University's wrestling program. “Polk’s colors are red, white and blue and when we got there to see the mats for the first time they were red and white with a big P on them. This team was a complete grassroots effort we are extremely proud of.” With only two wrestlers out of the 14 starters to have any experience, the start to the season for the Wildcats was a tough challenge. “Feeding them to the wolves” was how the first couple of months were best described. However, a newly acquainted group continued to battle through the early learning stages and listened to their coaches. “Polk County has been known to take very little and make the most of what they can,” said head coach Robert Combs. “These wrestlers have taken a start-up program and made us competitive in just one year. They have practiced and put so much in to achieving incredible success in just a short time.” Recently at the Region 2 A-AA tournament, the Wildcats provided quite a statement as they finished third out of a total of 12 teams. Hixson and Alcoa were the only two to finish ahead, which are programs vast in history. PCHS finished .5 points ahead of typical powerhouse Chattanooga Central for a top three finish. When the TSSAA Class A-AA State Traditional Championship begins Friday, Polk County will have half of its starting lineup out under the bright lights of the Williamson County Expo Center. Among those first-year wrestlers to advance to the biggest stage are: Josh Emerson (113), Cameron Dwyer (126), captain Zack Hammock (138), Justice Dykes (145), Carson Dillbick (152), captain Nolan Morris (182) and Devin Hollingsworth (195). “This is an inspiring group of young men who have battled and fought to achieve something pretty amazing,” Giansante said. “Imagine any other sport, basketball or baseball, and take kids who have never played it and make them compete at the high school level. Those are overwhelming odds. “These kids have had zero quit in them. I can tell them to do something 100 times and they are going to keep driving and pushing. Me and our other assistant David (Bradford) are both successful college wrestlers, so we’ve been in the ring with them trying to teach them all we can.” With big dreams for the program from the start in an area surrounded by powerful programs such as Cleveland, Bradley Central and Walker Valley (39 combined state championships, over 200 state medalists), emotions have been on full display this postseason. “I cried when these boys advanced to state,” Coach Combs said. “This is the first time for a lot of them to commit to anything bigger than themselves. Seeing them walk around the mats representing the top four wrestlers from our region was special. They went from no experience to having a chance to compete at state.” The community has rallied around the team as well. State Sen. Mike Bell has paid for the hoodies and sweats Polk County’s wrestlers will wear at the state tournament. Donations have flowed in with T-shirts, socks and gear bags. Even the local bank has offered the team money to buy food to take on their trip to Franklin, while a local auto shop has helped support the team as well. For senior captain Nolan Morris, the trip will be one to remember for a lifetime. His coaches consider him the “nucleus” of the lineup. “We all have worked hard for this in our first year,” Morris said. “The coaches have been amazing and the hard work has paid off. I want to live in the moment as much as possible at state. I am very excited for it and want to leave it all in the ring.” The moment will be bigger than any of the wrestlers for the Wildcats have ever seen, as they will be in the mix with the best through the entire state in a crowded, college-like atmosphere. With the chance to represent their school and community for the first time, the group is humbled by the chance and thankful for those who helped make it possible. “We want to thank our school superintendent Dr. (James) Jones and especially our school principal Ronnie German for being there for us all the way,” Combs said. “We also want to thank the people in our community for helping us financially. We hope this is just the start of wrestling in Polk County and hope to get a middle school feeder program going next year.” In a season that will go down as one of the most memorable in Polk County sports history, the Wildcats will get the chance to experience a moment this week that will surely take their breath away. Great job and good luck at the big show this weekend

62-59 Heritage made a 3 with about 2secs left. Very deflating loss - looked just like the game last Friday at CC, where it felt like Heritage was up 12-15 points, but every time you looked at the score CC was inching closer an closer. Tonight I think that Heritage was up by as many as 20 early in the 2nd quarter. They let them off the hook and CC made enough big shots and FT's to close out the game.

Scoring 2000 points, impressive Scoring 2000th up 80-15 in the fourth quarter, with all the players and coach running on the neutral court for pictures with the game still going, not as impressive.

I was at this game as well the intentional foul was called because the defender went after Levy from behind and made no play on the ball. In my opinion most coaches in the upper Cumberland leave starters in the game longer than they should. In my opinion player development is not taken as serious as it should be again in my opinion. If you have a running clock after mid way of the 3rd quarter starters shouldn't be on the floor. Once a running clock starts it remains for the rest of the game. All it takes as one star player to get hurt late in the 3rd or 4th and then what happens? ART. 3An intentional foul is a personal or technical foul that may or may not be premeditated and is not based solely on the severity of the act. Intentional fouls include, but are not limited to:a. Contact that neutralizes an opponent's obvious advantageous position.b. Contact away from the ball with an opponent who is clearly not involved with a play.c. Contact that is not a legitimate attempt to play the ball/player specifically designed to stop the clock or keep it from starting.d. Excessive contact with an opponent while the ball is live or until an airborne shooter returns to the floor.

I remember two years ago you said that South Greene coming from a weak East TN wouldn't stand a chance against your district in the Class A state tournament. So I'm not sure you should take what is coming from him as gospel considering South Greene won back to back state championships. I agree with 'workinprogress' that in tournament time anything can happen and you should never count any team out if they are capable of making it that far.

Last time i checked the refs are 0-0 and not ranked. If you have watched Upperman more than once this season you have not seen Levy in blowout games padding her stats. The bench has improved over the season due to the fact they have played a lot. Why? Coach McWilliams understands what's important and is a class act! She is well respected by the coaching fraternity. BTW, how many triple doubles has #32 from Cumberland had this year? Upperman has 2 players averaging double figures. How many for Cumberland? York was senior night. Typically the coach will leave the SENIORS in longer. Levy finished with 45 and probably could of scored more. She has earned the right to play one last complete game at home no matter what the score is. It's only a pattern if it consistently happens. 7AA may be the weakest district in the state. Everyone who has seen Cumberland play more than once knows what the agenda is. Let me hear you justify why you would put your best player back in the game when your up 79 to 29?

Yep there's another tough schedule.

I agree that south green has played a tough schedule.

Not saying Cumberland County isn't good. But you can't go by the coachT ranking. Some teams have good records because the teams they play are really bad. Bledsoe County is the second best team in their district behind Cumberland County and ranked I think 24th and I will promise you that Bledsoe is not the 24th best team in the state. CoachT has Red Back ranked 21 and the they are 21-4 on the year and they will lose by 40 when they play a good team. I see about 4 maybe 5 good teams Cumberland County has played this year.

As far as tough schedules go, South Greene has played four games with opponents ranked in AAA. Beat #6 AAA Dobyns-Bennett. Lost to #4 Morristown West twice by 2 points each time. And lost to #2 Bradley Central by 8 after SG was leading as much as 23-5 in the second quarter & Taylor Lamb had 32 points and 15 rebounds. They haven't had the chance to play any ranked AA teams but have shown that they can compete with AAA teams with no problem. They do play many teams in their District and Region who do not have a good winning percentage and that's probably why they aren't ranked very high on CoachT's schedule strength rankings.

Maybe you should read Feb 8 Crossville Chronicle. It will make plenty of sense then.

Having done the job before, the check is nice - but it would take a fool to do this solely for the check. Let's look at the outlays - TSSAA fees, association membership fees and assigning fees (that's about $150); add in the cost of a couple of uniforms - shirts, pants, patches, whistles and shoes (that's another $150); most of the varsity officials have to pay to go to a "camp" to work summer games for free every other year (you read that right, and another $100 plus two days' vacation out of pocket); then in the preseason, you're required to work (for free) preseason "play days," scrimmages and jamborees that raise funds for the hosting teams; then you get to spend a couple of hours every other week during the season sitting through rules meetings; then you spend part of your gameday at your regular job coordinating with your partners and the game administration regarding that night's assignment (with the distinct possibility that the game time or site will get moved, or you may get changed to a different game at the last minute because of an emergency elsewhere); then you spend a couple of seasons toiling through 4pm middle school and JV games before you ever see the varsity floor. My point...most of the people who do this job (in any sport, at any level) are doing it because they love being in or around the game. The check is nice, but the $105 for a B/G varsity doubleheader (MUCH LESS for middle school and JV games) is peanuts compared to the level of effort and dedication that most of these individuals put into the job. For the record, I loved it - and would do it again - but my knees gave out and my work schedule became prohibitive. I made lots of friends - officials, administrators, coaches and parents alike. Those who would dare say that large numbers of these people are doing the job for "easy money" clearly have no concept whatsoever of what the total job entails.

Think Hamm said something about giving his final rankings on Saturday night.

We don't, as I don't get up to the round gym very often anymore, I stay busy with my youngest kids sport which sadly isn't wrestling, but I put 2 and 2 together Also good luck to both your boys this weekend and I hope they bring some medals back like the one that alluded me when i got beat in the blood round! I didn't know about Wilson's injuries, guess I am going to have to have a talk to my oldest son as he never told me Tony has been hurt all year! And I do hope he gets to the top of the podium as with Ty, would be nice to have two champs come out of the weekend hopefully with a slew of medalists.

McMinn Central beat both Meigs and Cumberland last week....

Caden Mills should win this hands down.

The only name you need in Single A is Caden Mills from Van Buren County a 6-6 guard who is averaging about 30ppg