upper state

Upper state had 30 teams for A AA. 65 pigtails and no bye. Great food....

lower state 21 team 3 pigtails. Everything went great saturday......

There definitely need to be some changes made as to where teams are assigned next year. If 1A and 2A split classifications, We will no longer be competing in the individual tournament, not that anyone cares, but I refuse to let my kids wrestle in a watered down tournament like that. Best of luck to everyone at states this weekend, there are going to be some good matchups.

I can't imagine that is being considered. Back in the day the classifications were seperate, then they were combined. During my high school wrestling days the 1A,2A and 3A classes were all combined with only 4A separate. It was a common opinion of many that the combined class was tougher than 4A in those days. If anything they need to be combining classes again, certainly not going the other direction. 1A and 2A team should be combined again at least. Who is pushing this?

Even though there were more teams in the Upperstate, I think you will see equal if not more top placers from the LowerState this weekend at State. You had the top two teams in the state in 1A-Chesterfield and Bamberg and 2A-Hannahan and Loris in the Lowerstate. 5 out of the top 6 2A teams where at the Lowerstate tournament. As far as putting quality wrestlers on the mat for State I think this year's division will do that. If you feel 30 is too many teams then go to a Region Qualifier, Lowerstate can do it too if the numbers are too much; but NOT split the classes!

I don't know about the lowerstate, but check out the pairity in the number of qualifiers in the upperstate. Chesnee-5, Broome-4, Palmetto-4, Columbia-4, Liberty-3, Buford-3, 96-3, Cheraw-3, Abbeville-3, Woodruff-3, Crescent-3, Gilbert-2, North Central-2, Central-2, Strom Thurmond-2, Landrum-2, Carolina-1, Emerald-1, Pendleton-1, Blacksburg-1, Indian Land-1, Christ Church-1, Eau Claire-1, Mid Carolina-1, Keenan-0, St. Joseph's- 0, Newberry-0, Whitmire-0, Ware Shoals-0.

since I know first hand about the matches in the upperstate individual tournament I will make a comment, first there were 65 pig tail matches. this shows that the number of those wanting to participate are definitely up. When we hosted the upperstate indi. tournament three years ago there were very few ( I think about 3) pigtail matches. This year a person who was the 8th seed and lower had to wrestle a pigtail just to enter the tournament.I did not get to talk with the Broome Coach (Carruth) who hosted the tournament the previous two years but I do not think that he had many pigtail matches or at least as many as this year.So again ....THE NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS HAS GROWN which is a good thing. I did not hear anyone talking about making a separate tournament for 1a/2a. There was however talk about how to make it work better to possibly eliminate pigtails.Maybe a qualifier with more defined regions. The System in not perfect and we can come together to make it better. We are growing and it may be painful but I thought this is what we wanted... to grow the sport.
Skipper Hewell