wvmat.com

Next year something has to be done with not being able to bring food in for the wrestlers. $3.00 for a bottle of water, not to mention they make you choose from the crap food that they sell in the concession stands. If they want to force you to buy their product, at least have healthy choices compared to what they offer. Additionally, many families are already tapped from spending for a hotel room, dinner etc... At least allow them to bring in snacks.

With that being said, great tournament and ran smoothly. Plenty of seating, great competition. I realize it's not the WVYWA fault for Big Sandy's no outside food or drink policy. Great first year states guys!

You hit the nail on the head. That is Big Sandy's doing. They do the same for high school states and WSAZs. The only difference is they let team coaches bring a cooler of deinks and snacks for the team in thru the back door when the team arrives, but since we all arrived as individuals I guess that was not an option.

I agree. It was a great tournament otherwise. No major glitches and the competition was solid.

Duh! I disagree. That is the WVYWA doing and all those that choose to attend. It's not like they didn't know with renting a Civic Center comes with Civic Center pricing. Wanting a big venue with better seating comes with a price. I wish them well but there are pros and cons that comes with a big venue and there are pros and cons with a small venue like the Fieldhouse. If the people want a civic center environment, they will have to dig a little deeper in their pockets to pay for it. Quit belly-aching about the cost and enjoy the tournament for what it was and had to offer.

At WSAZ and States wrestlers are aloud to bring in coolers. Wrestlers and coaches also enter the arena through the back. That would have cut down on the line at the front.

brentsams wrote:Duh! I disagree. That is the WVYWA doing and all those that choose to attend. It's not like they didn't know with renting a Civic Center comes with Civic Center pricing. Wanting a big venue with better seating comes with a price. I wish them well but there are pros and cons that comes with a big venue and there are pros and cons with a small venue like the Fieldhouse. If the people want a civic center environment, they will have to dig a little deeper in their pockets to pay for it. Quit belly-aching about the cost and enjoy the tournament for what it was and had to offer.

With that the only issue, I'll take it any day over your Parkersburg monopolizing BS. In one year, they did it bigger and better than you guys. Join the success or stay on the outside... It matters not either way.

mscoach51 wrote:At WSAZ and States wrestlers are aloud to bring in coolers. Wrestlers and coaches also enter the arena through the back. That would have cut down on the line at the front.

I guess the problem was that there were so many more individual teams and coaches, the arena didn't allow for the back doors to be checked and didn't allow that to happen. I've already been advised it will be taken care of next year.

Come on Brent.

Happy things went well. Glad all the kids got to wrestle for another state championship but as said a few weeks ago at the original states....."were the best at this one?" Although competition was probably good you'll never know who the best was ! Sad for the kids that adults can't work It out.
How many won both making them a true state champion?

Can't fault wvywa for what big sand does although people were aware of the cost to people having it there.

mscoach51 wrote:At WSAZ and States wrestlers are aloud to bring in coolers. Wrestlers and coaches also enter the arena through the back. That would have cut down on the line at the front.

You said essentially what I said. TEAMS are allowed to. My sons have wrestled at high school states and WSAZ and they were never allowed to bring in coolers through the front door. Only teams were allowed to bring them in. This was not a team event.

southpaw wrote:How many won both making them a true state champion?

Obviously not many. Since some people in Region VI complained their way into getting a special day for their regional they are the only ones who got to attend both. Should be interesting to see if any of them managed to win both though.

coach_williams wrote:

southpaw wrote:How many won both making them a true state champion?

Obviously not many. Since some people in Region VI complained their way into getting a special day for their regional they are the only ones who got to attend both. Should be interesting to see if any of them managed to win both though.

Can you blame regional 6? The states have been same weekend every yr. I will say this... I would fault the other 5 regions OR wvywa for them being same weekend. Might be interesting having 2 for awhile!! To be a legit champ gotta win them both!
Only 1 that I've seen "Aiden morris"

Southpaw. Really. Do a dual on champions. I know off the top of my head atleast 5 that won jr states lost. Not a good start, but I won't degrade myself to your level. It was a great tournament amazing matches. Just a troll trying to rain on a parade that can't get rained on. Been to both WVYWA all the way

Everyone did a great job including the refs lol!! Ran very smooth. Everyone I talked to had a great time and liked the venue much better than the field house from the past. The trophies and medals were awesome. Not sure where it will be held next year but I'm sure the competition in WV will continue to get better. Thanks to all involved in getting the youth wrestling headed in the right direction.
P.S. No one complains about concession prices when they pay $100 for a concert ticket at the civic center

southpaw wrote:

coach_williams wrote:

southpaw wrote:How many won both making them a true state champion?

Obviously not many. Since some people in Region VI complained their way into getting a special day for their regional they are the only ones who got to attend both. Should be interesting to see if any of them managed to win both though.

Can you blame regional 6? The states have been same weekend every yr. I will say this... I would fault the other 5 regions OR wvywa for them being same weekend. Might be interesting having 2 for awhile!! To be a legit champ gotta win them both!
Only 1 that I've seen "Aiden morris"

I clarified this once before on here, but I will do it again for the purpose of this discussion.

- The middle school season did not end until Saturday Feb 20th, so having regionals before that date would mean middle school wrestlers could not attend without breaking WVSSAC rules against attending an open tournament during season.
- High School States were held Feb 25, 26 and 27. Nobody would have attended regionals that weekend anyway.
- WVYWA searched for locations to have the meet. Wesbanco Arena wasn't available for a long time. The Charleston Civic Center was booked for months. Big Sandy was the only venue with an available date and that date was March 19-20. This meant that WVYWA only had two weekends to have regionals before March 19-20, the weekends of March 5-6 and March 12-13. Choosing March 12-13 as the regionals weekend gives them just 4 days for regional results to be submitted, the brackets put together and the brackets finalized. Nobody in their right mind would want to have just 4 days to receive results and seed 800+ wrestlers, so they logically chose March 5-6 to give themselves an extra week to get the seeding done. The weekend of Jr States was not chosen to conflict with Jr States, it was the only weekend that made any sense at all.

Goldenponyboy wrote:Southpaw. Really. Do a dual on champions. I know off the top of my head atleast 5 that won jr states lost. Not a good start, but I won't degrade myself to your level. It was a great tournament amazing matches. Just a troll trying to rain on a parade that can't get rained on. Been to both WVYWA all the way

Wasn't degrading either! The best didn't show up at either. The state has been split so there's no true champion. Unless you won both.

RWWS wrote:Come on Brent.

I think we are on different pages here. I'm all for more wrestling and I know the new group was not responsible for concession prices at the Civic Center. It sounds like they had a good weekend and that is a good thing for wrestling. But to imply they didn't know the concession pricing was what it is, is back pedaling.

southpaw wrote:

Goldenponyboy wrote:Southpaw. Really. Do a dual on champions. I know off the top of my head atleast 5 that won jr states lost. Not a good start, but I won't degrade myself to your level. It was a great tournament amazing matches. Just a troll trying to rain on a parade that can't get rained on. Been to both WVYWA all the way

Wasn't degrading either! The best didn't show up at either. The state has been split so there's no true champion. Unless you won both.

It's as simple as this... Almost twice as many wrestlers were at WVYWA than Jr States... Not trying to take anything from the "kids" who won at JR States, but I know the better talent was at WVYWA. Stop trolling and let these kids be happy with what they won, either way.

matcoach90 wrote:

southpaw wrote:

Goldenponyboy wrote:Southpaw. Really. Do a dual on champions. I know off the top of my head atleast 5 that won jr states lost. Not a good start, but I won't degrade myself to your level. It was a great tournament amazing matches. Just a troll trying to rain on a parade that can't get rained on. Been to both WVYWA all the way

Wasn't degrading either! The best didn't show up at either. The state has been split so there's no true champion. Unless you won both.

It's as simple as this... Almost twice as many wrestlers were at WVYWA than Jr States... Not trying to take anything from the "kids" who won at JR States, but I know the better talent was at WVYWA. Stop trolling and let these kids be happy with what they won, either way.

More not always means better......congrats on a well ran tourney. Can't take anything from the kids. It's exciting for all.

The best wrestlers were at Parkersburg no question. The problem was they were all in the 4u division

Come on man ⬆️

the one thing I noticed with the brackets was there were a lot of forfeits leading to possible unfair advantage......BUT how do you fix it?

southpaw wrote:the one thing I noticed with the brackets was there were a lot of forfeits leading to possible unfair advantage......BUT how do you fix it?

They discussed that in the coach's meeting. They had the brackets set and then several people didn't show up for weigh-ins. Something about Track Wrestling's software makes it so that changing a single wrestler from one side of the bracket to the other results in every match in the tournament getting renumbered rather than the numbering staying the same and the names just being changed. Since they had already printed brackets and been selling them they were reluctant to entirely redo the brackets and have everyone who had bought a bracket book complain that their books were entirely wrong. The net result was that if someone scratched resulting in an unbalanced bracket then that was just the way it was. This isn't that uncommon in larger bracketed tournaments from what I have seen. Had the brackets been more full then nobody would have even noticed.

Regarding the earlier discussion about wrestlers winning both tournaments, from what I can tell only 2 middle school Jr States champs even attended WVYWA and only one of them was the champ at WVYWA as well. Not sure about youth wrestlers. The issue I have with saying that you have to win both to be a true state champ is that Jr States uses their own weight classes, not the WVSSAC weight classes, so technically nobody could win both in the middle school division since the weight classes do not align.

coach_williams wrote:

southpaw wrote:the one thing I noticed with the brackets was there were a lot of forfeits leading to possible unfair advantage......BUT how do you fix it?

They discussed that in the coach's meeting. They had the brackets set and then several people didn't show up for weigh-ins. Something about Track Wrestling's software makes it so that changing a single wrestler from one side of the bracket to the other results in every match in the tournament getting renumbered rather than the numbering staying the same and the names just being changed. Since they had already printed brackets and been selling them they were reluctant to entirely redo the brackets and have everyone who had bought a bracket book complain that their books were entirely wrong. The net result was that if someone scratched resulting in an unbalanced bracket then that was just the way it was. This isn't that uncommon in larger bracketed tournaments from what I have seen. Had the brackets been more full then nobody would have even noticed.

I was wondering if it was something the program couldn't fix. It's def. alot of work! Guess there's luck of the draw in there and as ive heard many people say before.. "If you are the best it dont matter who or how many times you wrestle!"

I saw Gage wright and Aiden Morris.

southpaw wrote:
I was wondering if it was something the program couldn't fix. It's def. alot of work! Guess there's luck of the draw in there and as ive heard many people say before.. "If you are the best it dont matter who or how many times you wrestle!"

You fix it by not using Track Wrestling. Track Wrestling is really nice since you can provide live updates for fans, but if their software is going to cause scenarios where you either have lopsided brackets or you have to entirely redo the brackets every time somebody scratches, then Track Wrestling has got to go.

Track is not the issue. It can be changed up until the tournament starts. It was a decision made that scratches from non weighins would be treated as forfeits. The problem is a book of brackets were sold to the public. 500 at x amount of dollars each. Re run 40 scratches and the book sold is useless. A scratch from a non weigh in was treated as a forfeit instead of readjusting all brackets.

Next year, if we don't provide early release of brackets (can't wait to hear those complaints since people wanted within 5 minutes of regionals ending) or if we don't make brackets until after weigh ins complete (again can people be information deprived and survive) the problem is solved. But you can't expect a bracket to be made early and stand the test of no shows, weight issues, skin issues, illnesses, and family emergencies. Only 2 brackets ended up with an isue that I am aware of and that caused 7th place match issues.

I think you could just release the seeds for each weight rather than the actual bracket. This should appease the masses! BTW, you all did an amazing job. I it was great for the weekend to have a "state tournament" feel, rather than the feel of a big tournament in a small gym. I can't wait until next year! Thanks for all of your ahrd work and dedication to making WV wrestling better!