State wrestling

Anyone watching tomorrow team competition? Wife teaches for Sebeka who is joined with Menahga to make UNC. They made it as a team for the fourth consecutive year but they drew Staples, who is a powerhouse. Gonna be a tough morning for them tomorrow. They also sent 6 individuals. I wrestled all through high school and some JC. Use to hate watching wrestling when I was in it but really enjoy watching good matches. Can watch the whole tournament on prep spotlight.

2 of my boys wrestle for Royalton. Their team is not as good as it once was but we are sending 3 to state for individuals. My oldest(senior) got 3rd at sections at 160. Had the number 2 and 3 ranked kids in his bracket. My youngest a freshman got 5th at 107. We got our butts kicked by staples at sections and stayed for them against holdingford. That was a good match. Staples won by 1 point. By the way staples 160 is a 19yr old junior.

My kids and I have been following individual entrants. It been fun seeing kids I know from when my youngest was in youth wrestling and competed against advance to state.

Its Great to see Staples back doing well in Wrestling. I went and watched the sectional finals in Holdingford. That was a incredible match. To bad only 1 team got to advance to State. I believe both teams are probably one of the top 3 teams in class A in the State. I see all 13 wrestlers placed in the top 3 in sectionals and 9 advanced to the State individual tourney. I was a member of 2 state championship teams at Staples. The were a powerhouse in the 80’s and early 90’s. I believe some of those years they would have beaten the class AA champions. There was only 2 classes back in those days.

Yep ‘96 was first year with 3 classes.

fishthumper wrote:

Its Great to see Staples back doing well in Wrestling. I went and watched the sectional finals in Holdingford. That was an incredible match. To bad only 1 team got to advance to State. I believe both teams are probably one of the top 3 teams in class A in the State. I see all 13 wrestlers placed in the top 3 in sectionals and 9 advanced to the State individual tourney. I was a member of 2 state championship teams at Staples. The were a powerhouse in the 80’s and early 90’s. I believe some of those years they would have beaten the class AA champions. There was only 2 classes back in those days.

Staples is ranked 2nd and holdingford 3rd. Staples lightweights are beasts. Ranked top 5 or better all the way to 139 including a last years state champion.

Stanley wrote:

Staples is ranked 2nd and holdingford 3rd. Staples lightweights are beasts. Ranked top 5 or better all the way to 139 including a last years state champion

Ya Chatfield who I believe is ranked # 1 is the opposite, They have lots of wrestlers ranked high and mostly in the upper weights. It seems like Staples has always been better in the lower weights than the upper weights. This was the case during their long run of championship years.

Stanley wrote:

2 of my boys wrestle for Royalton. Their team is not as good as it once was but we are sending 3 to state for individuals

For such a small town, Royalton use to always have some great wrestlers and a strong team back when I was Wrestling. It was always a shame that Camby was always one of the top teams in the State and almost never made it to state because they were in Staples Region and only 1 team advanced. I remember when I was a 10th grader our Jr. varsity got invited to a Varsity tourney and finished 1st. 2 of the teams we beat at that tourney ended up qualifying for State that year. People often joked that Staples JV most years could probably beat most of the teams that qualified for State back then.

Have some cousins over the years who have wrestled for Staples with the last name Becker. Grew up hunting by where the hospital is now. My friend coaches where I grew up not to far away and I think it was five years ago they Won back to Back State titles and placed 4th the year before. They were loaded those years and were a blast to watch. Even though I prefer to watch basketball.

orve4 wrote:

Have some cousins over the years who have wrestled for Staples with the last name Becker

There were a lot of Becker’s living in that area when I was in HS there. I think there was 2 of them in my graduation class.

This years sectional Match was the 1st wrestling match I’ve attended in many years. The scoring is a little different with more points on Takedowns. The team scoring is a little different as well. The style is a little different as well but lots of the same move’s

I wasn’t sure what to think about the new scoring this year but I think it’s been a positive. Tech falls can be easier as well as comebacks. In one move a wrestler can get 7pts real quick.

Staples-Motley was an absolute powerhouse back in the day. They have been working on a comeback for a while.

Stanley wrote:

I wasn’t sure what to think about the new scoring this year but I think it’s been a positive. Tech falls can be easier as well as comebacks. In one move a wrestler can get 7pts real quick.

Ya a takedown and a nearfall would be 7 Pts. Do that 3 times and I believe they would stop the match and it would be 5 team points. In my day takedown was 2 and a near fall 3. I don’t think there was any point difference total where they stopped the match. The major decision stoppage is probably a good thing.

Jake D wrote:

Staples-Motley was an absolute powerhouse back in the day. They have been working on a comeback for a while.

I can’t remember what year Staples and Motley schools merged. Most of their Wrestling Powerhouse days I think were prior to the merge. Its possible it happened right near of their long run of Championships.

I will be cheering for the Kasson-Mantorville Komets. Would really like to beat Simley this year.

fishthumper wrote:

Ya a takedown and a nearfall would be 7 Pts. Do that 3 times and I believe they would stop the match and it would be 5 team points. In my day takedown was 2 and a near fall 3. I don’t think there was any point difference total where they stopped the match. The major decision stoppage is probably a good thing.

Excuse me as wrestling illiterate, but I remember it like you explain it… 2 pt takedown and 3 back points. So what adds up to the 7 points now? More back points or is a takedown were more than 2? Tech falls were always the most fun to watch, the better wrestler just taking a kid down and then letting him up over and over and over.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Jake D wrote:</div>
Staples-Motley was an absolute powerhouse back in the day. They have been working on a comeback for a while.

I can’t remember what year Staples and Motley schools merged. Most of their Wrestling Powerhouse days I think were prior to the merge. Its possible it happened right near of their long run of Championships.

They recently got the Apple Valley coach, right?

tswoboda wrote:

So what adds up to the 7 points now? More back points or is a takedown were more than 2?

Both. Takedown is 3 and up to 4 back points I believe. My oldest just started in wrestling and it’s a lot different these days. Apple Valley is not the king of the hill anymore, STMA, Waconia, Shakopee (among others) all have great programs from what I was told in AAA. And in lower classes the local programs we knew, Pierz and Foley are on a little down swing.

Waterville Mayor Lutheran have two twins ranked #1 (Friedrichs), would be interesting to see twins get state titles. I knew their dad from my wrestling days in the late 80s early 90s and their uncle was on our HS wrestling team a few years before me….his nickname was cavemen due to his excess body hair.

As big worm posted. TD is 3 pts and Near fall is 4 pts.
Yes the coach is the former Apple Valley coach. He won a lot of championships while there. I believe this is his 3rd or 4th year at Staples

DaveB wrote:

Waterville Mayor Lutheran have two twins ranked #1 (Friedrichs), would be interesting to see twins get state titles.

Built in practice partner from birth. Before birth actually

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>DaveB wrote:</div>
Waterville Mayor Lutheran have two twins ranked #1 (Friedrichs), would be interesting to see twins get state titles.

Built in practice partner from birth. Before birth actually

I remember the Sanders brothers from Wabasha. Although not twins, they were eachother’s best competition. Both are 5x state champions. The only reason they weren’t 6x state champions is that they couldn’t make the minimum weight to wrestle in the lowest class as 7th graders.

One of them is an assistant coach at the U of M now. I think he also wrestled overseas for quite a while too after college. They were the most dominant wrestlers I ever saw at their respective weight classes. It was a foregone conclusion what was going to happen no matter how highly ranked their opponents were.

The sanders brothers were quite amazing. I remember when Zach got pinned at a tournament in the middle of the year to Andy Forester from Madelia-Truman. I think he was an 8th grader then and Andy was a junior.

I haven’t followed HS wrestling for a number of years now, but looking at the results from the first round of team today I see a ton of pins and tech falls. I understand the increase in TF with the new 3 pt TD and 4 pt NF. But the amount of pins is crazy to me. In the first round of all three classes I counted 71 total pins over 156 matches, that’s 45.5% of matches that ended in a pin. Of those 71 pins 49 of them were in the first period. Only 4 total were in the 3rd period.

I asked my brother about this as he’s a wrestling coach and he said so many kids just give up once they get on their backs and don’t fight.

Team wrestling presents some pretty big mismatches. You can easily get a top ranked wrestler in the state wrestling a kid 2 years younger who is a .500 wrestler and the “weakest link” on their own roster. How Minnesota arranges their sports’ “sections” creates big mismatches too. Certain regions of the state dominate specific sports most years where their section runner-up is probably the 2nd or 3rd best team in the state. I wish the MSHSL did more to guarantee the best teams get to state for all sports versus sticking to concrete sections for everything. Wisconsin goes through a seeding process for some sports that throws more of the Geography out the window in the name of competition (at least for football).

Some great semifinals matches. I’m so happy KM beat Simley.

I think the sections get a makeover next year. It happens every 4 or 5 years.

buckybadger wrote:

Team wrestling presents some pretty big mismatches. You can easily get a top ranked wrestler in the state wrestling a kid 2 years younger who is a .500 wrestler and the “weakest link” on their own roster. Team state is cool to watch, but the atmosphere at the individual state tournament after you get a round or 2 in is definitely more intense.

I was a basketball player through and through but have developed a pretty big appreciation for wrestling after the fact. I lived with some wrestlers at SCSU who were dogs (in a good way). They were the best guys to hangout with at bar close if any arguments ever popped up.

No doubt there are differences in skill level and the 2nd round had fewer pins, but still quite a few 1st period falls and more than I remember as a wrestler.

It was great when they used to have team and individuals at the same time. Teams on the corner mats, individuals in the middle, and loved to see how many more fans the A and AA teams would have than the AAA teams.

Looks like it was a barn burner with Shakoppe vs Stillwater. Shakopee won 27-26 due to a 1 pt deduction on Stillwater for unsportsmanlike conduct. Stillwater would have won on criteria by winning 7 matches to Shakopee’s 6. As Frank the Tank says “You’ve got to keep your composure!”.

All the finals are the #1 and #2 seeded teams in all 3 class’s. The Staples Chatfield final is going to be interesting. Several of both teams wrestlers are in the same weight class. The match will most likely come down to who wins those Key Head to head matches. Both teams Qualified 9 wrestlers to the Individual tourney. Staples has the much younger team. Of their 9 qualifiers 2 are in 8th, 1 in 9th, 1 in 10th, 4 in 11th, and only 1 senior. Chatfield has 2 in 9th, 2 in 11th, and 5 seniors. May be a factor which team has the older and more experienced Wrestlers. Last year Chatfield Beat Staples 47-7 in the final. I think it will be much closer this year but think Chatfield may still be to much for them. Next year will be Staples year for sure.

blank wrote:

Looks like it was a barn burner with Shakoppe vs Stillwater. Shakopee won 27-26 due to a 1 pt deduction on Stillwater for unsportsmanlike conduct. Stillwater would have won on criteria by winning 7 matches to Shakopee’s 6. As Frank the Tank says “You’ve got to keep your composure!”.

WOW. That one will burn. I doubt either team would hang with St Michael. They have been a powerhouse for awhile now.