Chief, Yes, they wrestle other 14 and 15 year olds on JV, there are very few Reece Conklins. Most freshmen on varsity get tore up all year long and now the powers that be would take away their prize for working hard all year and getting better. My son was a 14U 8th grader last year at 165 and worked hard to finish 2nd, beating freshmen along the way, taking that away waters it down so much as to be almost meaningless. We went to tourny after tourny last year with no more than 2 or 3 kids for him to wrestle, even at salina he had only 2 guys in his bracket that he pinned in the 1st period.
Ed,
High School varsity rosters have many freshmen in them. I would not call it a prize to wrestle High School all year and then drop down to a Kids division tournament to wrestle 7th and 8th graders. The upper weight participation in Kids is the issue, not filling that gap with high school wrestlers.
By the way, there were 80 Freshmen State Qualifiers in 4A/5A/6A last year!
