6A - who’s going to win the team championship?

Craziness!!

If Olathe North gets all 4 wins with two pins, they likely win. Unless, Manhattan wins all three of theirs. Rural has three finalists. Derby has to have 152, and likely needs an upset at 32 and 60!

Never seen one this close!!!

Any of those four can win. Wow.

I've been sitting at my computer for the past hour trying to figure this out. Here's the scoop...

Team Scores:
Manhattan: 138.5
Derby: 136.5
Washburn Rural: 135.5 145.5
Olathe North: 133

Finalists:
Manhattan: 3 (favored in 1)
Derby: 3 (favored in 1)
Washburn Rural: 3 (favored in 2)
Olathe North: 4 (favored in...2? 3? 4?)

From what I can tell, it's going to come down to how many matches OLN wins and how many bonus points each team scores. There are fairly possible scenarios where OLN loses state by .5 points.

I think Olathe North is the favorite, Washburn Rural is next, and then Derby and Manhattan are right there as well.

In conclusion, go Team Top Hat, win the whole banana.

Washburn Rural off to a big start with the pin
Here we go

We will know in another 13 matches

Rural 2 for 2 - they are making a case for who’s number 1 in 6 A
Other teams in the hunt have their chances coming up

Olathe North 1 for 1 with a pin in the finals -holy cow exciting
I nearly fell out of my easy chair when Slyter got a pin. Plenty more wrestling
match excitement ahead for the 4 teams involved in the hunt.

Rural 3-3 for their guys in the finals - now what can the other teams do to answer?

Olathe North 3 for 3 and still in the hunt with 1 more wrestler and Manhattan has to go big in their two matches - Derby can close the gap with Rural.

Olathe North goes 4 for 4 in the finals and many other wrestlers on the team contributed to the Team Tilte. Congrats to all the teams - that was exciting!
I hope NCAA’s are that close this year.

Congratulations to Olathe North for the team championship and to Washburn Rural for second. It was a great weekend and a tight race makes it that more suspenseful.

Yesterday's 6A team race made me go back and look at the history on Mitch Beims's (incredible) state wrestling history website.

The 2018 team title race had the closest point spread between the first- and third-place 6A teams since the state moved to 14 weight classes in 1996. The 8.5-point spread between the top three teams in 2018 tied the 2010 race (Goddard/Derby/Wichita Heights), but 2018 was slightly closer 1st-4th than 2010.

The 1.5-point deficit between OLN and Team Top Hat was the smallest winning margin since that same 2010 season, and was larger only than Hutchinson's 2002 win over Manhattan by 1 point (that one also involved OLN coach Josh Carroll, whose upset vs. Hemmerling in the 215 finals gave Hutchinson the victory).

So it's safe to say, yesterday's result was as crazy if not crazier than any 6A state tournament since the state moved to 14 weight classes 20+ years ago.

Other fun facts:
-Goddard's 250 points yesterday set a state record for team points. However, they "only" doubled the second place team. 1984 Beloit scored 2.4x the amount of points of second place, winning 193 - 81.5.
-Also in 1984, Emporia won the state title by .5 points over Wichita North
-In 1994, Wichita West won the state title by .5 points over SM West

Congratulations to Josh Carroll and the Olathe North Eagles! Those guys absolutely brought it. 4 state champs is insane! The tough schedule they wrestle paid huge dividends at state. They were totally unphased by high-pressure matches. Great team effort by all 14 of their qualifiers!

Loved the videos before the tournament and before the finals. That brought a great energy to the room. Speaking of energy, Derby’s fans were intense! That’s a great wrestling community with unreal support for your boys, and the cheering back and forth between your section and ours was definitely good for the sport! We were VERY impressed with Triston in the finals. The coaching staff put together a great gameplan!

Manhattan was incredible as well. They came up HUGE in the blood round. Really happy to see Bubba get his title. Congrats to their coaching staff as well for all of their well-deserved accolades!

Coaches-next year we should get a quad set up between the top-4 state teams. That would be an electric dual environment!

Best of luck to everyone in the offseason. Looking forward to doing it again next year!