Hopefully these duals will garner more interest next year. This being the first year, very few people knew about them. It is a great way to get more mat time, and wrestle the team dual format.

I think the Liberty Nationals is doing a Dual the second day this year also. The duals are a trend and a good money maker as the mats are already set up.

Had a great time watching the kids for Team Kansas. We were so close to wrestling for 1st but came up short. If we didn't have some of the higher weight classes open, who knows what could have happened. Great job boys.

I want to thank all the wrestlers that competed on the dual team. I would also like to thank Boo Dryden and his team of coaches. Coach Prieto and coach Trowbridge were also a huge help. The boys competed very well and ended up taking fourth. We were missing a lot of Kansas kids in the upper weights, so I would like to thank the Oklahoma kids that were on the team. All of the teams there had high school boys in their upper weights. So, until Kansas can compete in tournaments during high school season we will continue to fall behind in this area. Again, thanks to all the kids and the parents that stuck around for a long week-end and will see you at the next tourny.

Chris,
Thanks for putting this together. I think all of the boys had a blast and so did the parents. It makes for a long weekend, but I think both the wrestlers and the coaches prefer this format to the regular tournament format.
Personally, we have now competed in the dual format twice and it has been awesome both times. We can't wait for Elementary Duals in April and anything else that might come up between now and then.
The Edmond Black team ended up winning the duals. We lost to them 48-41 in the Semis and the outcome could have been much different if not for the disadvantage that KS has at the higher weights with our current restrictions at the middle and high school level. It was still a lot of fun though. Thanks for having us and lets do it again soon.

Kevin McCracken

As I sat there watching the USJOC 15u division compete, I was thinking how tough that tourney would be if KSHSAA didn't have their heads in the a$$es, and would "allow" our Kansas kids to compete. And all of you whiners that argue that a kid shouldn't miss his HS team's tourney, to go to a tougher tourney, don't have that argument here, as it is New Year's weekend, and high schoolers aren't doing anything that weekend.

I will be cocky and say that Kansas kids could/would have won 1/3 to 1/2 of the 15u brackets at USJOC, if our 15u HS kids were able to wrestle it. No offense to the OK kids, it is just a fact that Kansas has 15u eligible kids capable of winning that tourney.

And to Doug's point, the duals could have turned out a lot different too if we had a bigger pool to draw from in our own state.

Amen.

I agree we are shooting ourselves in the foot on this one. Time to lobby for changes in KS athletics. It also doesn't help that we've run most of the bigger kids out of wrestling due to weight restrictions at the lower age groups. Maybe the new change of wrestling up an age group at state will help that. But it may take a few years to see it's impact.

I'd have to say I agree and I hope with the right direction and the ear of the right people, our KS HS kids could go compete in their down time.

As far as a father who sent his boy to USJOC, who turned 14 the day before the tourney, it was a very good experience for him. He was able to wrestle some HS kids, to include a Fargo All American, and I am hoping that the mat time with solid kids will pay off down the road. If you have the opportunity to send your wrestler down there, do it. I wish I was there to see him wrestle. Also I apologize he wasn't able to wrestle for the Team KS dual team, sounds like you guys represented big time!

PS: A huge thanks to the SEK coaches for taken care of our Lawrence boys! We owe u!