I won't try to justify it, but here is the story: In our 112 lb match, Jerod had his guy on his back in a head and arm for a minute and 20 seconds, no fall called. In our 120 lb match, Levi had his guy on his back for at least the same amount of time.(one of the parents gave me the exact times but I can't recall) No fall called on either. A coach slammed his clipboard down and a piece of it broke off, hit a water bottle, and I believe the official thought something was thrown. Had the coach invested in a quality clipboard, we would have had no problem. Not a big deal, but we got hosed. Either one of those spatula requiring situations being called a fall would have given us the dual win. This kept us out of the championship bracket. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.

We brought 4 schoolboys (could have had 5) back from last years team and performed very well. We lost a one point dual, a two point dual, a three point dual, and a four point dual. Any of those duals could have been changed by the outcome of a single match, not getting pinned, injuries, etc. By my count, there should be 9 schoolboys returning for next year. Josiah Seaton, Reece Cokeley, Luke Henes, Dylan Eck, Zack Hensley, Isaac Dulgarian, Devin Moore, Jared Langley, and Kyle Huck. These boys competed, took their lumps, handed some lumps out, and got better. I have no doubt that the schoolboy team for next year has a chance to be very good once again. If you have a kid that was born in 1996 or 1997, start planning now to make yourself a part of next year's team. Most of the above mentioned kids are in the smaller weights, so we need some beef in addition to as many of the smaller kids as we can gather up.

Some of our kids wrestled all 16 rounds. Having alternates made it possible to get some rest for some of our kids. I believe that 6 matches is probably the least that anyone wrestled, barring injured kids. Mentally, this will probably be the toughest thing your kid will have done in this sport. Rest assured, every kid that went feels good about the experience, whether they got the wins or not.

Kansas was well represented. However, it is obvious that our technique is well behind the states that made the championship rounds. However, our toughness is at or above any of them. I'll leave it up to someone smarter than me to give some ideas on how to better prepare us technique wise, to compete with these states that start FS/Greco in March.