X,

There are several examples that I can think of 321A or 4A wrestlers who performed well against 5A or 6A wrestlers. In 2006, Norton had a 171 who took 2nd at the Newton tournament. His name escapes me. But he had to go through several of top people in the state to make the finals. In doing so he lost to a wrestler from Perry, Oklahoma. Then at regionals he was the number 1 seed and failed to qualify. I believe this same wrestler failed to qualify the very next year under similar circumstances. Based off of his Newton results you'd expect him to be a state placer in any classification. However, he failed to even make it out of regionals because of the "quality" and "quantity" that it possessed. Coach Johnson could fill in the blanks for me.

At 152, Dalton Rodd of Campus qualified with an 10-11 record. He qualified out of one of your "quality" regionals in Wichita Northwest. Rodd failed to win a match at the Hays Prairie Classic. The runner-up of this bracket Lorenzo Delgado of Goodland didn't even make it to state due to the "quality" and "quantity" of his 321A regional. Jordan Eggers of Dodge City and Kyler Meyers of Hays both made it to state while being out performed by Delgado at the Prairie Classic.

At 135, one of the weights you've done extensive research on, Cope Wickham of Hays qualified to state with a 14-19 record. He failed to place at the Hays Prairie Classic. He lost head to head against Nash Karst of Russell who was later beaten by Austin Lopez of Ellis. Neither of the wrestlers made it to state. Travis Steenson of McPherson went 5-21 this year and made it to state. He was beaten by Tyler Worta of Ellsworth who also failed to qualify to state.

These are just results I observed while looking at one tournament. I'm sure I can find a lot more also but there is no point in me beating a dead horse. All the classes have kids who would not make it to state in various regionals, but they did qualify in the one they are in. The wrestlers deal with the cards they are dealt and just try to "take care of business". If you want the regional disparities to be fixed in each of the classifications I'd suggest contacting Rick Bowden of KSHSAA and stop making accusations about how one class is better than others because of quality. Really it's pretty equal and changes from year to year.

Last year the Large Class Schools dismantled the Small Class Schools at the Senior Classic. However, the overall record since the switch to Large/Small format is 3-2 Large Class. Not a run away by any means. Just sit back and enjoy this last week of high school wrestling.