The wrestlers started rolling in early Thursday evening. Many took in a last minute workout at St. James Academy. Tonight there are about 10 wrestlers and coaches sleeping out in the barn. Tomorrow morning at 9am 85 wrestlers will gather to get their gear and load up in vans to make the trip to Iowa to wrestle middle schoolers from all over the US. Our four teams are comprised of kids from the four corners of the state: Garden City, Goodland, Kansas City, and Chanute. Wish them all good luck this weekend!

Make your own luck boys. Great job by the organizers, parents, coaches, kids, to all those involved.

I wish you all a safe and prosperous trip to Iowa. There are a lot of outstanding wrestlers on all four of these teams (can you say depth?). What an honor to represent the state of Kansas at this event. Good luck and Godspeed.

A huge Thank You to Will and the rest of the team who spent many hours puting teams together and planning this trip.

Good luck to all from Team Kansas!!

Ned

They are officially on the road. We checked in and loaded up 84 wrestlers in 9 vans. I want to thank all of the parents who took the day off and brought their wrestlers to Lawrence and a bigger thanks to the dads who are piloting the vans. I always say the best thing about wrestling is the friendships you develop from the wrestling community. I can't wait to get up there tonight!

Best wishes to all and thanks to the coaches for taking on the responsibility.

This is a prime example of planting seeds for Kansas wrestling! Watch the names of these wrestlers over the next 4-5 years. The investment of sweat, time and money by those involved are an encouragement to all of us!

Good luck Kansas kids!!! K some A!

Pool 1
1. Iowa Black
2. Team North Carolina
3. Team SD Westside
4. Team Kaw (Kansas 4)

Iowa Black is Iowa's number 1 team. They are a contender every year.

Pool 2
1. Team Illinois
2. Team Montana Maroon
3. Team Palmetto (South Carolina)
4. Team Nebraska

Team Illinois should be tough based on their USA wins in Cadet and Juniors. However, they fill four USA MSND rosters so this may not be their best.

Pool 3
1. Team Pawnee (Kansas 1)
2. Team North Dakota Stars
3. Team Wyoming Blue
4. Team Montana Grey

Pawnee looks to be in position to go undefeated in their pool. Based on my past three years experience we got a favorable draw.

Pool 4
1. Team Iowa Gold (2 Team)
2. Team Osage (Kansas 2)
3. Team Colorado Red
4. Team Michigan Extreme

This should be a hard fought even pool. Colorado will be lucky to win a dual.

Pool 5
1. Team Tenessee
2. Team Missouri
3. Team Colorado Blue
4. Team Michigan Titans

Missouri will walk through this pool! They sport 17 Tulsa National placers. They got a 2 seed because they didn't compete last year. Look out!

Pool 6
1. Team Montana Grizzly
2. Team Pennsylvania
3. Team SD Pierre
4. Team Comanche

Coach Vander Linden is looking to move up to the silver or gold pool this year! He challenged his boys last night and they look poised to make some noise. This is PA's first time here so I am not sure what to expect. They should be really tough but we will have to wait and see.

Pool 7

1. Ohio Prodigy
2. Team Michigan SE
3. South Dakota AAU
4. Team Iowa Hawks (3 team)

With Team Jordan being absent this year (Ohio's best and the usual champion of this event) Prodigy could be really tough.

Pool 8

1. Team Minnesota
2. Team Ohio SW All Stars
3. Team Wyoming Red
4. Team North Dakota Stripes

Minnesota will run away in this pool of also rans.


We will wrestle at 8am, 10am, and noon. More later!!!

Team Comanche records a first round win!

56-26 over South Dakota Pierre.

Penn wins over Montana 95-3 and we have them next!!

Ohio Prodigy escapes with a 47-46 win over Michigan SE.

Parker Howell 13-0 over Keyes
Jake Greider 1-6 a tough loss to Manfore
Dylan Eck 9-0 over Manfore
Holland 0-4 another tough loss to Richie
Dulgarian 7-0 over Frisco
Kinder 5-4 over Manfore
Mullin gets caught and pinned by Stoltenburg
Younger battles for a 5-0 win Leiferman
Fiscus sticks Williams
Kennedy gets roughed up a bit 3 - 10
Kyle Ryan wins 4-0 over Dorshner
Andrew Denning polishes off Scott with a fall
Adler follows with another pin against Jacobsen
John Peden battles but cannot get off his back LBF to Lettan
Grater loses a dogfight 7-9
Bonsall loses by fall to Gutmann
Blazevic pins Baker
Butler dominates and pins Jennerette
Bieberle gets pinned by Lewis
Gonzalez with a Z pins Bennett to finish off Pierre's team

Pawnee defeats ND Stars 78-16.

Winners
Mies
Leach
Hood
Gentzler
Shoemaker
Helms
Humphrey
Williams
Eck
Armstrong
Becker
Ortiz
Meck
Guillen
Bradley
Wilcox

Osage starts off strong but falters to lose to Iowa Gold 28-53

Winners
Cokeley
Suppes
Reed
Maki
Jared Johnson
Puckett
Rodd

Team Kaw
They lose a tight dual 45-48

Winners
Furnish
DiBlazi
Morrow
Himpel
McEachern
Harrison
Ernsdorff
Yergey
Elsasser
Burleigh

The 12 points in forfeits killed us!!

Pawnee rols up a 91-12 win over Wyoming. We gave up 6 on a forfeit as Dillon Archer tweaked his shoulder in the first round. Pawnee should dismantle their next opponent as well against Montana Grey.

Kaw is in a tight battle with North Carolina and Osage is slowly dropping back against Michigan Extreme.

PA wiped us out 96-0. A PA mom complimented Coach Vander Linden as he kept every wrestler fighting until the end. She said, "Many teams just roll over and die when they wrestle us." When you don't get what you want you get experience. We are building character here at the Middle School Duals.

Osage pulls out a big win over Michigan Extreme! It was a see saw battle and came down to the 250 lb match. Rafalko down 5-1 at one point throws his opponent to his back and pins him for a 52-42 victory.


Kaw lost another close one 50-37 giving those 12 forfeit points. Next year lets fill up all four line ups!!

Keep at 'em boys. I miss being there.

Matt

Someone else will have to keep DVL awake this year.

Iowa Black is beating up our Kaw boys a little. It is 54-3 with DiBlasi owning the only favorable decision.

Osage is in another battle royal. They lead Colorado Red 13-10

Pawnee is up 85-6

Comanches are losing 9-25 to Montana.