I always find this "#s game" thread that tends to start every year right after the state tourament very interesting. First off let me be clear that I am aware of the history and traditions of "NW Kansas Wrestling" as I am a former wrestler from a "few years back" in the old NWKL & had to battle through that Regional myself. I also coached a couple years out west.

I have since been coaching in the central part of the state (or eastern for you tradionalists). I can never seem to sleep right away after getting home from Hays, so I did some number crunching myself. Heres what I came up with:
Norton Regional: 33 medalists (39%)
Marion Regional: 26 medalists (31%)
Rossville Regional: 15 medalists (18%)
Hoisington Regional: 10 medalists (12%)

Doesn't seem quite as unbalanced toward Norton's Regional as everyone thought going in. Now granted, the finalists numbers were definately shifted that way. Also, I've been around long enough to know that if the brackets are re-drawn and re-wrestled, the outcome could look entirely different.

My main interest was to see how many "potential placers" were left home due to the depth of that Norton regional. The only weight that all four Norton Regional wrestlers placed in was at 112 lbs. They had three medalists @ 119, 135, 145, & 285. The remaining 9 weights had four or more placers from the "rest of the state."

In no way do I intend to take anything away from any of those that qualified and battled their way through the state tournament to earn a medal. Great job to all of you. I just thought I would share these few observations.