Dodge City- 32 ranked individuals (8 number 1's) and the number 1,5,7,9 ranked teams

Blue Valley Northwest- 24 ranked individuals and the number 8, 10 ranked teams

Wichita Heights- 21 ranked individuals (6 number 1's) and the 2,3,4,6 ranked teams

Shawnee Mission South- 7 ranked individuals and no ranked teams

Wow that Shawnee Mission South regional is WEAK. Looks like they need to take a few teams from the Blue Valley Northwest regional and let them wrestle there to even it out a little.

Generally in the SMSD, the freshmen are first or second year wrestlers due to the lack of clubs or junior high teams in this area. Props to Joel Rios for developing many of these wrestlers into state placers and champs over the years.

just curious but is state a 16 or 32 man bracket
and how do the seedings work
(sorry if i sound dumb but i'm new to the state)

16 man bracket

top four from each region -
sequence of match ups from each region will be announced after regional tournament.
1 vs 4
2 vs 3

is it possible then for the number one ranked guy and number two ranked person at a weight to see each other in the semi's

yes it goes off of regional places, and if those two regionals are on the same side of the bracket they could meet in the semis. it has nothing to do with rankings. that is why so many people say "the rankings don't mean anything". in the end they don't.

Every year there are weights that have the top two wrestlers on one side of the bracket. Last year at 189, an undefeated Matt Baker wrestled Blake Long in the semis. Both of those wrestlers had pinned the best wrestler on the other side.

It would be a nice improvement if we seeded the 4 regional champions in the State bracket.

then you would run into more problems chief. lets say your regions #1 and #2 are ranked #2 and #3, but have to face each other in the cosolation semis. then what rearrange the bracket again so some one doesn't get 4th, who should actually be 6th? i understand your point, but the best, most consistant, fair way to do it is the way it is now. some weight classes the top six come from two regions, the next weight class up, maybe from two totally different regions. wrestling teaches all of us LIFE lessons, and my personal favorite is that life isn't always fair. the best way to avoid the above senario is to make wrestling brackets TRUE double eliminations, wrestle until everyone has lost twice exept the champion. it would stretch the days, but we might feel we came up with a better top 6.

It would actually be less problems. Seeding the regional champions would certainly not fix the problem but it would absolutely help. Last year's 189 would have put Baker at #1 and Long at #2. Your scenario of two ranked wrestlers in the same region could still happen but it would present less problems than the current random system. What a great LIFE lesson it would be to reward the four champions with a seeded bracket instead of a wrestler getting lucky with his random draw. That's no lesson at all.

sure it would be less problems for the regional champs, but it would create problems for everyone else.my point is there would always be someone who feels slighted, no matter how you do it. look at the andover regional at 119 right now it is stacked. that has nothing to do with seeding or regional pairings it has everything to do with the four wrestlers who happen to go to those schools. chief i promise no matter how you draw it up, one of the "top 6" will be knocked out by another one of the "top 6", and that someone not in the "top 6" will get a plaque. i know its a shame that baker and long had to wrestle in the semis, but you won't change the fact that someone has to lose. double elimination is the only way to change it to really affect the current system.

Doesn't the Shawnee Mission area have a youth team called the cougars? I know of one club youth wrestling team in the Blue Valley area and that is the BVWC and that has mostly Blue Valley school district kids in it. However, at BVW most of their wrestlers start out as freshman 1st year wrestlers as well. On their current varsity there are only 2 kids that had experience outside of high school. There are clubs at St. James in Lenexa, East Kansas Wreslting Club as well as others. Not sure you can blame the weakness of that region this year on a lack of youth wrestling clubs.

Johnson County/Wyandotte County is pretty weak when it comes to wrestling. This conclusion comes from a per capita evaluation, knowing Johnson County is the largest county in the state, Wyandotte is third, and that something like 1/2 of the 6A teams come from here and maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the 5A teams come from here, if you include teams like Lawrence/Free State and Leavenworth/Lansing. Just compare the numbers of state placers/team placings after the state tournament, and you will see what I mean. This is not to say there are not and have been great kids here, it is just on average we underperform with the Wichita area and the rest of the state. We do have strong kids clubs, notably Paola, STA, EKL, and the Bonner Springs and Leavenworth County clubs, but not near enough to cover this large area. I say this not to impugn anyone or any club, just to point out the facts- we need to improve our performances to obtain the same levels as the rest of the state.