I like the 40-40-48-rest plan. I think we have to stick with a double elimination regional though. It may make a long day, but it is just one day. As a coach, I would rather a kid have to forfeit for 3/4th because of the 5 match rule as opposed to being one and done with a true pigtail match. For example at the Burlington regional, there were 12 seedable wrestlers at 160, and we ended up drawing the 4th thru 11th seeds because it was the endless circle of everyone had criteria over someone. It would be a shame to only get one chance by luck of the draw. It would not make that many more matches, and keeps it consistent. Pigtail them back in to the backside or 16 man brackets, either way.

Sounds like there were only 3 seedable wrestlers.

The #3 thru #12 seeds all had very close matches with each other all season long, beating each other. All were very close.

I agree with Regan about need for double elimination.

But I think we would need to stick with a 2-day 16man bracket for Regionals even with 12 teams. I do not think we should ever draw or look at criteria for the 3rd/4th place match at a Regional tournament.

I don't think it can be done in one day with the 5th-Match Rule. There will always be the chance the 6th match would come up.

How about getting rid of the 6th match rule. We have middle school kids consistently wrestling more matches than this and to my knowledge none of them have died or have been injured.

That is a National Federation rule & thus is more difficult, even though it makes complete sense to us directly in the wrestling frontline (coaches & kids). But that doesn't mean it can't be continually pushed for. I believe NF has heard plenty of times how much coaches want the rule to be changed.

There is a proposal this year to allow a 6th match if a wrestler has not wrestled a total of 30 minutes on the day combined mat time. Not sure how far that proposal will get or has progressed.

It would be awesome to go back to the days with 6-5-4 A in one building.

Totally agree, Coach Lane. I definitely miss getting to watch the studs from 4A that we don't get to see throughout the year.

Had a proposal a few years ago before the KSHSAA Exec Board that had some traction and support from Mr. Bowden. Wrote up the proposal with Mr. Bowden's input; the presentation went well, Exec Board acted interested. . . and then pfft. Two reasons I heard: (1) TOO far outside NFHS rules and (2) Coaches were not vocally supportive of it. If people are serious, quit talking about it on the chat board; write up a proposal for an AD to take to the KIAAA meeting; if it comes out of there as recommended to the KSHSAA it has an inside track to the Exec Board. KWCA submit it as group recommendation to the KIAAA through a sympathetic AD. Write it up every year, have leagueS write letters of support, etc. demonstrate there is widespread support. . . and not just on the chatboard.

"A 6th match will be allowed in one day bracketed tournaments when necessary to determine a place for which team points are awarded, if both wrestlers are members of KSHSAA member school teams."

Rationale: (a) would allow for larger one day tournaments thereby, hopefully, reducing expenses. (b) If only KSHSAA wrestlers allowed to do it, fewer NFHS issues. (c) a placing match should be decided on the mat; not by a list of criterion.

Agree! Great! Would like to see it again. But where-what building? Reclassed regionals, however big the regional bracket, will still send the 1234 placers to a 16 bracket state tournament. No Kansas facility is currently available that is big enough to host 3 concurrent state tournaments (maybe that bank owned arena in Wichita that a lot of folks did not like). Maybe Kansas could borrow the Sprint Center in KC, MO.

The 40 40 40 and 40 40 48 are all good proposals that will greatly benefit KS HS wrestling. If all regional can not be wrestled in one day, then there needs to be another proposal.

If the community thinks 12 team regionals need to be wrestled over 2 days, with a fully seeded 16 bracket,tournaments, perhaps a 48 48 48 654A structure is the answer. But, probably saves no money, saves no travel days, in fact will probably add one travel day to each current 6A and 5A school.

3 X 48 structure will require moving 16 schools from 5A to 6A, moving 32 schools from 4A to 5A, and moving 16 schools from 321A to 4A. 654A classes will have 48 school size parity. Moving the biggest 16 321A school to 4A will remove the biggest 4 schools from each 321A regional (reducing the 321A pressure currently with 21 or 22 schools in their regionals). Need to get 321A folks thoughts on moving their biggest 16 schools to 4A: how will that effect the quality of their regionals and state tournament. 2013-14 KSHSAA enrollment info reflects the following schools would be moved up to 4A:
St. George-Rock Creek 247
Hesston 247
Holcomb 245
Hiawatha 244
Hays-Thomas More Prep-Marian 243
Sabetha 239
Cheney 238
Halstead 238
Easton-Pleasant Ridge 236
Marysville 234
Beloit 234
Gypsum-SE of Saline 233
Silver Lake 232
Cherryvale 230
Anthony/Harper-Chaparral 230
Wichita-The Independent 224

One way of solving the 6 match problem and getting it done in one day would be to Pig tail the first round and eliminating wrestle backs for pig tail losers. Pig tail losers would only get one match. This effectively would cut the time down on the tournanent also. You could draw it so seeded wrestlers are out of pig tails. Theres no reason to gurantee two matches for wrestlers. If you have a weak record and get put into pig tail, its tough if you lose. But your weak season put you there.

Does a bye count towards your 5 match limit or is it 5 physically wrestled matches?

I just drew this out. Not an expert by any means--just an old soccer coach.

Try to construct a 16 bracket for a 12 team wrestling tournament-i.e., a KS 12 team regional.
---a full 12 team weight class will have 8 total byes (4 open round byes, 4 byes transfer 1st round of the losers bracket)

---A weight class with only 11 wrestlers will total to 11 byes that all transfer to the backside (5 open, 5 1st round losers bracket, 1 to the 2nd round losers bracket.

---A weight class with only 10 wrestler will transfer 14 byes to the backside (6 open round, 6 byes to the 1st round losers bracket, 2 byes to 2nd round of losers bracket).

---I think every added open round bye adds at least byes 3 if not more. Very low density weight classes with less than 8 wrestlers may need to go to an 8 bracket format or you will be 3 days at what was intened to be a two day tournament. What a sore buttocks!!

Assuming an average of 10 wrestlers per weight class (that may be overly optimistic) X 14 weight classes you potentially have a tournament short fall of 140 byes--that's a lot of byes to work through!)

Somebody please check/review/certify/destroy my numbers.

Willy,

On Track Wrestling, the Bye's take care of themselves. Takes about 1 minute to work through. Just on a side note. Im undefeated in my life against the BYE family, and that includes wins in other sports.

Willy take my "Pig Tail" proposal. Say you have 11 wrestlers in each weight class. Thats 3 matches in the pigtail round per weight or 42 matches. Takes about an hour for the whole round. When you're done, you have a full 8 man bracket. Easily done in a day. Tough on the 3 kids that go home early, but they're the ones that most likely wouldnt advance anyway.

Thanks. I think that is what I have done in 4,5, 6 ++ previous posts. Are you talking 8 or 16 bracket structure. I Do not open round byes transfer to the backside, especially in a 16 bracket structure. Just looked through the TRACKWRESTLING Bracket examples. Cant find a good bracket example that deals with an 8 bracket tournament with 9 10, 11 or 12 wrestlers in a weight class. My proposal has always been to pigtail the over 8 wrestlers, with the pigtail losers eliminated. Those one match eliminations will reduce the weight class to an 8 bracket weight class.
Several folks object to the one and done.

Don't understand your the Bye's take care of themselves,or "the round per weight or 42 matches." I ran out of fingers to count on, can't hardly reach my toes anymore.

Hi,
The sixth match rule was discussed at the NWCA conference last Aug. in Florida. The main opponent to changing the rule are other states. There are states that are getting between sixty and eighty matches in a season by NFHS statistics.

Patrick Naughton
Lawrence High