wosbodog

Good post FridayNightLights. No reason for any more hostility.

Very true, but Hooker and Duncan keep getting better by going to national tournaments, and Watson might have been to some as well. And Duncan moved up 3 weight classes (actually 4 since he wrestled at 112 for part of his 8th grade year) and still won. But yeah, good point; I was hoping Miller would win again. Hunter's dad, right?

After the 06-07 season, Baylor lost a lot of their studs. Ben Johnson (4-time finalist, 3-time champ, NHSCA All American Junior), Mike Bell (2-time finalist, 07 champ), Reed Doster (3-time finalist and 2-time champ I think, All American Junior), Daniel Waddell (4-time finalist, 2-time champ, 2-time All-American at least), Fritz Doster (07 finalist), and McClain Still (2-time finalist) all graduated. Baylor's only returning medalists were Alex Manley, Bailey Whittaker, Trey Stavrum, and I can't remember the others. Father Ryan was returning the majority of their talent, and was expected to dominate. So for Baylor during one of its down years -with 4 starting seniors, 4 starting freshmen and 1 starting 8th grader- to tie with Ryan -7 seniors and no starting freshmen or middle schoolers- during one of Ryan's up years is a very big deal and that's why Baylor would tend to be happier with a tie than Father Ryan. I might not agree if I were a Baylor kid this year, but it makes sense.

Remembered one thing no one's mentioned. We have a 4-time state champion, Bailey Whittaker. Congratulations! Jeremy Miller still has a shot to be a 4-timer, as well as Ethan Hames and Stuart Doster. Watson, Hooker, and Duncan are all going for 5.

D1 Best Wrestler: David Mang, 135Best Match: 160 Greeneville vs. Pigeon Forge but cmmndalum, who watched all the matches, said the 215 final was much betterD2 Best Wrestler: Zach Watson, 103 BaylorBest Match: Whittaker pin Francis, 125...2nd year in a row for best matchOh yeah Zach Watson is an 8th grader I think.

Agreed, I think this has been blown way out of proportion. Let's focus our attention elsewhere...

Anybody wanna start?

Shoot, they wouldn't even need to wrestle the finals if that took too much time, as long as they determine the top 4 placers. It could be random who gets the byes. Anything, even the weird elimination, is better than cutting the number of weight classes.

WHAAAT????!!!!

These are all for d1 right?

Dude yeah, Region 6 is becoming the new Chatanooga. Indy and Brentwood are gonna be powerhouses, Ravenwood's proven they can too, and Overton has potential every year as long as Gabriel's coaching. Franklin though has probably seen the end of its days in the top 10, at least for a while. After Justin Cash graduates from Brentwood Academy, I hope his father goes back to coaching middle school (preferably a feeder for a d1 school) and the clubs cuz he really knows how turn young kids into studs. What you learn at a young age has the most impact I think. Speaking of which, we have an incredible talent pool of freshman this year and it's most likely because of the middle school experience on the national level. Cox I know your brothers went to the national duals in middle school along with Duncan, Hooker, Doster, Manley, Hoop, Miller?, Maxwell, Jaeckel, and everybody else. I say stuff like that is the number one reason for Williamson County's rise in power. All we have to do now as a state is get more kids doing freestyle and Greco and going to Fargo, then Tennessee is gonna be one of the best states in the country.

Ha! I remember in October of 2006 it was a preseason tourney and I was talking to Cameron, asked him who he was facing next and he said "a guy from Ravenwood" He didn't know it was 5th place finisher Chris Wolfe. So I told him this guy was good and I figured Cameron could get a good taste of high school competition and some good experience by facing him. Then he almost beat him! I couldn't believe it, but then I realized just how good Cameron was, dominating middle school and winning multiple national tournaments all over. And from that first match with Wolfe at the preseason tournament, a rivalry began. Kudos to both of ya.

Which do you think was the toughest? 152 through 189 were all stacked.

So who has a shot to be an All-American?

Anyway about the double elimination, besides for putting d2 in another building, I liked fiscus's idea as well as tnko's. But I believe what Ronnie Carter and the TSSAA want is to devote no more than two weekends for the region/state tournament process. I'm assuming both region and state must have at least part of their tournaments on Saturday so the wrestlers don't miss too much school, and so they get a few days to rest between the two tournaments. It's also a priority for the TSSAA that they conclude the state championship as fast as possible. So the crazy elimination system is the best way they know to solve the problem. But this clearly isn't working out. I guess this leaves us with just two alternatives, and I'm not even counting the idea of less weight classes (go get 'em David!) If 32-man bracket double elimination is out of the question, then we can either use two facilities to hold the tournament reduce the number of entries Why we're not using two buildings is beyond me, so let's say reducing the number of qualifiers is our only choice. The best thing I can think of is to have a 24-man bracket. A round of 32 with 8 wrestlers receiving byes. This I think would save enough time. To do this, have 6 regions each advancing 4 wrestlers to state. New Region 1: Combine current Regions 1 and 2 New Region 2: Current Region 3, with a few teams from current Region 4 New Region 3: Current Region 4 minus the dropped teams, plus half of Region 5 New Region 4: Current Region 6, plus the other half of Region 5 New Region 5: Current Regions 7 and 8 New Region 6: Current Regions 9 and 10 Each region champ gets a bye in the first round of state, the 2nd place finishers from the two strongest regions (whoever had the most state medalists the previous year) also get byes. I dunno know, what do you guys think?

Well Josh I think is naturally lean, but if you're right then that's odd, because last year in an interview Josh seemed eager to gain some weight. I wonder if maybe he cut so one of his teammates could wrestle at 119. Or he might've thought he had a better shot at 112.

Good post. I hope Young will be okay.

I couldn't believe it. Have we ever had a tie for the championship before?

hehe

I wasn't there to see it but I was shocked when I read about it. Josh appeared to be the most rapidly improving wrestler in the state, going to all the national tournaments and stuff. But I guess Pipkin was even better. I still say Josh has a great shot at success if he chooses to wrestle in the future, because he seems to have a lot of love for the sport.

That's something everybody's been wanting for years, except for basically either a few schools or tssaa members who think the private (d2) schools have an advantage because of their power to "recruit". It's a worthy argument, in fact I have no problem with separate dual tournaments, as the best teams could face each other at any time during the season if they agreed to; it's the individual championships that need to be combined. The only way I see this happening would be if they didn't crown any team the champion; no plaques or recognition- that's what the dual tournament is for. The individual state tournament would be solely in the interests of the individual athletes so one could call himself the true state champion. But for this to happen they would need to change the team scoring for dual matches. Right now I'd say there's more merit in winning an individual tournament because the dual championship is like rock-paper-scissors. It's hard for one team to call themselves the best, because they could have easily lost on another day. The scoring system just doesn't accurately gauge which team is really the best. So here's my new plan: Decisions worth 3 team points Major decisions worth 6 team points Tech falls worth 7 team points Pins worth 8 team points This gives a greater distinction of which team has the more dominant wrestlers. I think it could work.

And yeah, let's not tamper with the number of weight classes. That would be questionable at best, if everybody else, and nationals, didn't have 14 classes.

There's one thing that no one seems to be taking into account. If we have all these mini tournaments instead of throwing everybody together into a 32 man bracket, then the guys are gonna have to keep facing the same opponents. Everyone will be restricted to only facing the wrestlers in the nearby area, instead of drawing potentially anybody in the state. Having a 32 man bracket lets more kids get exposure to what the sport is about, which is something we need. I say keep the round of 32; instead we should do like tnko says and hold the division 2 tournament at a different building. That would allow for more time and not screw anybody over. If they needed to they could hold it a week earlier since there's no region tournament for d-2. And it's small enough that it could be held in a high school gymnasium. Then they could move the finals to the McKenzie Arena so you could see both championships in the same building, which is also important since it keeps our sport together as a whole and probably makes more money from tickets. I don't see why this method wouldn't work, as I'm sure plenty of schools would love the honor of hosting a state tournament.

I still haven't found them. DI or DII

Not saying I don't have faith in Independence, in fact I'm rooting for Austin and Brennen to win state, but as a team I know they're new and inexperienced, and overall Franklin and Brentwood have the edge...in my opinion.