I believe that the situation that I described above (with the pre-tournament No. 1 and No. 2 wrestlers being matched in the first round) actually happened in my son's bracket this weekend at the Salina tournament. My son in my opinion should have been seeded No. 1 in this tournament. He won State last year in his first year of the 12 & under age bracket and he is also undefeated this year in the same 12 & under age bracket. It was a full 8 man bracket and somehow they seeded my son No.5. In the first round he faced a wrestler who from my knowledge of this year's and the last two year's results that I thought was the No. 2 wrestler of the eight wrestlers. There was also in the bracket another State Champion from last year from the lower 10 & under age bracket. He has been having a little tougher time so far this year in his first year in 12 & under and the heavier weight class. He was seeded third but I would have probably had him fifth going into the tournament. He did not end up placing. The young man who was seeded first is a fine young wrestler whose family has become a friend to my family. He is a first year 12 & under Missouri wrestler who has never won a match against my son although he gave him a great close battle at the Johnson County Classic this year. He is having a great year in Missouri 12 & under but I do not believe that he has placed at Missouri State yet (he should win it this year though). I would have seeded him fourth in this tournament.

This ended up okay for my son. He won the tournament. The No. 4 seed who my son wrestled in the first round ended up third. The No.1 seed who I would have seeded No. 4 did end up taking fourth. My son wrestled him in the second round. My son had a very tough final and had to get a last minute takedown to win by 6-5. I am not sure that my son has ever been in a full eight man bracket where in his three matches he ended up wrestling the 2nd place, 3rd place and 4th place wrestlers to win the tournament. For my son we ended up very pleased. He faced tough competition in all three matches and this will certainly help him going forward.

I just think that possibly the wrestler who I thought should have been the NO.2 seed would probably not be happy having to face my son in the first round. I think it would be okay for a normal weekend tournament but for a premier tournament like Salina where people travel great distances for a quality tournament experience, I think we should expect more accurate seeding. Ideally, don't you want to have the top wrestlers facing each other in the championship match at a big tournament instead of the first round? I looked at Salina's and Wichita's entry blanks. If I remember it correctly Salina has the more general categories like A-normally wins, B-normally finishes 2nd or 3rd etc.. Wichita has that too but also has to the side columns to list the number of state championships, state places, state qualifiers, etc.. I like Wichita's better and I believe that if it is correctly filled out that for these big tournaments where you get kids from all over Kansas and other states that the tournaments officials will have a better chance of seeding these kids that they are really not that familiar with.

I know that a lot of people do not think this is that big of a deal and maybe it isn't. I just believe though that when people are investing that much more time and money to attend these bigger tournaments that the tournament officials owe it to the wrestlers, coaches and families to do the most accurate seeding possible and that past competitive State tournament experience can more accurately accomplish that than the more general type of information that the smaller local tournaments use and that has been suggested in this topic.