A big thank you to the Eureka Wrestling Club, Angie Lowe, Kim Burtin, their coaches, the parents and the faithful wrestling "family" in Eureka for a great start to our weekend! This was one of the larger tournaments that they have held in recent years, and we were impressed with how well organized and coordinated the tournament was. Everyone we came in contact with was friendly and really worked to make this a good experience for the clubs involved.
We had several "first-time on the mat" wrestlers and "first-time" parents, and I thought this tournament served as a great first experience for them. Plus, we had several experienced wrestlers that needed quality matches this early in the season. We found lots of quality opponents that have had state-level experienced and helped us get better by wrestling them!
I like the Round Robin format. Several tournaments in the state have gone to this format to "ability group" kids where-ever possible. We had a few kids that did not get to wrestle until late morning/early afternoon that is the only danger that you run into with a Round Robin bracket when a 4-man bracket becomes a 3-man bracket and the wrestler that gets the 1st Round "Bye" has to wait for Round #2 before they get to wrestle. However, we are willing to accept this when you know that you are going to get two, three, or maybe four matches in one day with opponents of about the same ability-level.
In 14 years, I have been to MANY traditional-bracket tournaments where wrestlers have one match to get to the finals or even "Bye" into the finals. So each format brings with it a unique set of problems. HOWEVER, most of these problems are based on a common factor that no tournament staff can control: Scratches on the day of the event!
With that said, you do the best you can and hope that at the end of the day you have made 90% of the folks happy!! I think that Eureka was above 90% and should feel good about all of the work they did to host a quality tournament in our area! Thanks to everyone that was involved!! Please know that there are a lot more folks that are thankful for what you have done. However, they just don't always express it in person, through a note, or on this message board!
Doug Vander Linden
Burlington Wrestling Club
p.s. Thank you for allowing us to use the "Flip and Scores" for our tournament on Sunday!! Michelle and I loaded ALL of them up in the van after the last match was done just a little before 4 p.m. on Saturday. We then waited with our club coaches for the tournament awards (which were very nice trophies by the way) and we walked out the door at about 4:15 p.m. and got back to Burlington to setup at 5:15 for our tournament. Thanks for wrapping things up quickly!!
p.s.s. Congrats to the Caney Kids Wrestling Club on winning the Club Championship on Saturday. You guys have done a great job with your kids. Keep building, and the Tri-Valley League will be even better for it down the road. Congrats to Eureka on their 2nd place showing and El Dorado on their 3rd place finish, also!!
