2015 Kentucky Youth State Wrestling Championships

Sunday February 22nd

Alltech Arena Kentucky Horse Park

4089 Iron Works Parkway, Lexington Ky. 40511

 

Entry Fee:

•  $15 per wrestler – non refundable – Make check payable to KSWA
• Each team must pay with 1 check for all kids that were submitted. 

 

Eligibility: 

• Must be at least 5 years old before 1/1/2015 and no older than 12 years old by 12/31/2014
• Must wrestle in one of the 2015 Kentucky Youth Region Tournaments and be a permanent Kentucky resident. 
• Must be a member of a current USA Kentucky Wrestling Club. Must have a current USA Kentucky wrestling league card or a current full USA wrestling membership card.
• Must be on the track wrestling roster with an eligible Kentucky youth wrestling club.  To be eligible clubs must have all paper work in place and fees paid with Kentucky USA wrestling.

 

Registration:

• Each regional host must submit their region’s roster.  Rosters are due on or before noon Monday February 16^th. 
• Rosters must be submitted to Matt Lee: [email protected] in the spread sheet provided.  We will not accept a roster in any other form or format.  Do not add extra information into the body of the spread sheet.  You must put a 0 in the experience cell. It will not be used for tournament purposes. Only required as part of the tournament software. 
• No late entries will be allowed.

 

Weigh-Ins: 

• Weigh-ins must take place from Saturday February 1^st - Sunday February 15^th.  Weigh-ins must have a certified wrestling official present.  Official weigh-in sheets must be signed by the both parties present at weigh-ins.    A copy of weigh-in sheets must be turned in at registration.  You must use the provided weigh-in sheet.
• All wrestlers are subject to a weight check at the tournament. 

 

Admission: 

• Adults:  $6,     Students:  $3. 
• Five (5) coaches for up to thirty (30) wrestlers: Each additional ten (10) wrestlers allows one (1) additional coach.  Coaching bands can be picked up at the time of team registration and payment. 
• Only wrestlers and coaches with bands allowed on the arena floor.
• No coolers allowed

 

Schedule: 

• Session 1 Birth years 2008/2009 and 2003/2002
• Wrestler and Coach check-in from 7:30 am – 8:30 am
• Wrestling 9:00 am – 12 noon
• Session 2 Birth years 2004/2005 and 2006/2007
• Wrestler and Coach check-In from 7:30 am – 12 noon
• Wrestling 1:30 pm – 5:00 pm

 

Format 

• 16 man brackets Double elimination grouped by birth years and the 10% weight difference rule. 
• Three (3)  sixty (60)  second periods
• Awards for 1^st – 6^th individuals. 

New format this year, why the change?

Coaches agreed to go from 8 to 16 man brackets placing top 6.  This was done to make the State Tournament more competitive/challenging and to have more of a "big tournament" feel for the kids.  It was brought to a vote during the off-season meetings and was passed (I believe) unanimously.    

 

I'm excited that we'll be using Track Wrestling so we can archive the results.  It should also make the tournament easier to follow for all the confused spectators. 

Awesome! Love the changes.

MLee is correct, it was unanimous!! It's a great way to continue to make our state more competitive, as so many keep asking for and still allow the sport to grow by using the 10% weights. Track wrestling is going to be a great tool! Hopefully the next step is to have the Regions using it next year leading up to the 2016 Staye tourney!

It should also make the tournament easier to follow for all the confused spectators. 

 

I see what you did there.. Thanks for the info, and I am looking forward to it.

Outstanding move!

I apologize in advance for the new member questions, but as I recently took over a club I want to make sure my guys are eligible. My club is a paid USAW club and all of my kids have their cards and will be participating in a regional tournament. As for the track wrestling roster, is this something I as a coach need to do or is that something that will be done automatically by going to the regional? Also is there any other paperwork that I may need to file as a club with the KSWA or USAW besides the basic charter? 

 

Thank you in advance for any help with these questions.

USMC, you are in good shape.  For this season (and hopefully only this season) we are going to manually enter each participant.  Starting next season, we'd like for each club to be responsible for registering their kids on Track. 

 

What Regional Tournament are you attending?  Feel free to reach out to your Regional Host regarding questions pertaining to the State Tournament.  I'm sure they can assist.  Meanwhile, feel free to send me a PM and I'll try to answer any question you have.

I hope this doesn't cause kids from the same clubs to be wrestling each other more often. That would be my main concern.

I hope this doesn't cause kids from the same clubs to be wrestling each other more often. That would be my main concern.

MLee and I will be combing over the brackets to make sure the same issues are avoided such as limiting the number of kids from the same team in a bracket (where possible) and trying to avoid kids from the same region wrestling in the first round.

I think a sixteen man bracket is great for regions and state. However, in order to do this properly, and like the "big kids", then there is more to it then just setting up brackets. How are these kids going to be seeded? That is a very important part to middle school and high school brackets and should also be important for our Youth. Also, it should be top 6 from regions get to move onto state, also like the big kids. If it is a money thing, then double fees for state.

I think a sixteen man bracket is great for regions and state. However, in order to do this properly, and like the "big kids", then there is more to it then just setting up brackets. How are these kids going to be seeded? That is a very important part to middle school and high school brackets and should also be important for our Youth. Also, it should be top 6 from regions get to move onto state, also like the big kids. If it is a money thing, then double fees for state.

Its not a money thing, it's a growth thing. The youth part of our state is to introduce as many kids to wrestling and grow our numbers. It's to find quality people to take an intrest into a club and help create quality wrestlers. We are trying to make youth wrestling attractive to kids. We want Football coaches to embrace the benefits of wrestling and encourage lineman to come out and work on agility and speed. For smaller kids that at feel they don't belong in football to know there's a weight class for them. The metals, Faceoffs, music and spotlight is about the kids. We are going to try and create competive 16 man brackets using the 10% weight rule the best we can. Along with track wrestling a 16 man bracket should get us closer to the competitive wrestling were looking for.

Love the growth and emphasis on helping clubs grow! Didn't mean money thing as in trying to make more for profit purposes, just meant to cover costs of space, refs etc. But that was not the main focus of the question. Essentially, without any way to seed these athletes, and the fact that all wrestlers can go to state if they go to regions, you could end up having the two top wrestlers competing first round. You mentioned in a previous post about trying to make sure kids from same teams and possibly region to not be placed in the same bracket or first round, but that still is not an accurate seeding method. Is there anyway to try and use region standings for state bracket seeding?

I don't think regional placing a could be used die the state tournament seeding because the kids, due to the 10% rule, may not even be in the same bracket as the kids they wrestled at region.

In my opinion the seeding issue is really only a big factor for determining who is the true 2nd vs. 3rd. Could easily be solved by having 2nd & 3rd placers wrestle to true double elimination. I have never quite understood why this isn't done in wrestling.

Seeding kids from different regions that don't even wrestle each other during the year would be impossible espically using the 10% weigh classes. Each region is using a 8 man bracket. You could have 2 kids from one region win their bracket. Which one is 1 from their Region when they both are close in weight but ended up in different brackets. 16 man bracket will most likely place them in the same state bracket. How about a tougher region that has a kid finish 2nd or 3rd but has beat a different Region Champion several times. Does he get seeded higher? I think the direction our state is going to make it more competitive and take it to a 16 man bracket is great. Maybe next year we could have 3 tournaments throughout the year be a seeding tourney. So you could have data for head to head. Also more teams run on track would help with this data too. Keep up the positive changes for our wrestlers. The State progress on all levels is looking great. Seen some solid kids win regionals this weekend and most of them were our youth of yesterday that we've coached and promoted thru State championships at Frankfurt!!

With the High School tournament moved, is the youth state still on schedule for Sunday?

.

KSWA official announcement for immediate release:

 

The 2015 Youth State Tournament being held on Sunday February 22, 2015 at the horse park, Alltech Arena is still on as according to previous schedules.  Upon conversations with the Horse Park, it is deemed best by both parties to have the event as originally scheduled.  Should a team have participate changes due to weather, please contact Matt Lee directly ASAP to make those changes.  

 

Regards

KSWA 

First Round of my sons bracket 2 kids that both one there regional wrestle the first round im a little confused

First Round of my sons bracket 2 kids that both one there regional wrestle the first round im a little confused

First Round of my sons bracket 2 kids that both one there regional wrestle the first round im a little confused

First Round of my sons bracket 2 kids that both one there regional wrestle the first round im a little confused

There is no seeding for youth state. Brackets are all created by random draw. Kids from the same region and/or club are seperated for the first round when/if possible.

That's a wrap folks, thank you to everyone that participated, volunteered and supported all the Warriors

Great tournament and even better wrestling boys and girls. Very excited about how competitive our youth wrestlers looked today. Great decision to utilize Trackwrestling.com for the little guys too. Future looks bright for KY wrestling. Big huge thanks to everyone involved.

Also, I loved the 16 man brackets. Great step in the right direction for KY youth wrestling.

Great StateYouth Tournament. The level of wrestling was spectacular. Big thank you to Adam, Matt, Jason and Darren.

The 16 man brackets and Track Wrestling gave a Big Tournament feel to the day.

I agree with everyone here completely. Big thanks to all of those who put in the time and effort to make this happen for the kids and had to put up with the barrage of questions from people like me. Great job guys and girls, and we are looking forward to seeing you all next year.

The youth tournament was very good this year and there is no doubt that 16 man brackets has made for more competition and many great championship matches.  Thanks to everyone who put it together especially considering the weather conditions.   

I wanted to congratulate all the wrestlers and teams from this weekend tournament. What we were hoping to gain from the 16 man brackets sure did pay dividends!! I seen some amazing semi finals and final matches on Sunday. The kids really have is our monies worth. The podium looked great with 6 placers this year too. It was fun watching some of the brackets unfold as you would think they would based on kids you know. Thank you to Adam and his wife for the hours and hard work they put in. Thank you to Mr and Mrs Jason Moore for running the track and entering results throughout the day. It was great have as up to date as possible team results and the final results on track. Thank you to the Messerly family for helping us set up and break down the complete tournament. BTW Congrats on your 1st Place Division 2 Championship. Thank you to my partner in crime Matt Lee for everything you've done to make this tournament a success. Countless hours working on the brackets with Jason Brown, Jason Moore and Chris Duke. Running the floor with you gets less challenging every year since we have some sort of system now. And lastly thanks for letting me continue to do Faceoffs!! I believe the kids love it as much as I do!!!

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Great day of wrestling, although I didn't get to see near enough. First and foremost a huge thanks to all of the parents, kids, and coaches we braved the weather and make it to Lexington. I heard about one accident involving a couple of Cobra kids and Coach Ackley said they were ok with only minor bumps and bruises. I pray that is true and everyone else traveled home safely. Second thanks to all those who put in work to make this huge event run so well. The N KY mafia always comes together and gets the job done. A big part of that is the Raider program who always does a huge part. Big thanks to Coach Andreoni and the Woodford Co crew for helping especially with mats. Also to Coach Critchfield and the Lexington programs for use of their mats as well. And a ton of table workers from all over the state. It is easy to be critical when they make mistakes, but without them we couldn't run 20 mats and pull this event off.

Huge, huge thanks to Amber for saving me with all of the track entry on her "day off". My fingers just were not fast enough. Thanks April and Page too with bracket help.

JC1 My name is Jason Brown from Union County and was elected president Tyler Baines is from River City was elected vice president. I have been coaching at Union County the last two years and have been involved in every league meeting we have had as well as Tyler. I also helped coach team KY last year. I truly believe that everyone that ran for office has the best interest for KY middle school wrestling without any hidden agenda's. Darren Thomas would have been a great president and I have no doubt that he will continue to be involved with the officers of the league to give his support and knowledge to help us grow as a state as I would have done with him. He is a true ambassador of the sport. KY Wrestling is heading the right direction. The officer's of the league simply facilitate mostly it is the coaches that come to the meetings to provide input and feedback. Last year I recommend that we have a joint practice during the meeting so that people aren't just driving down for a meeting then heading right back home. We did it in the fall and had a pretty decent turnout. This spring I would like to have 2 sessions of practice so it is worth everyones drive and hopefully increase the coaches that participate. I think most people knew who everyone on the ballet was. I agree with you when the term is up and it is time to elect new officials we will take time and have everyone introduce themselves in the coaches meeting. When we talked about it at the coaches meet Jason Moore did say if you don't know who they are find out and talk to them but I know most were more worried about coaching their kids as they should be. So in the future we will try to take care of it before we get started. Welcome to KY I look forward to working with to grow our sport.

I enjoyed the tournament. I still like 8 man brackets for the sake of growing the sport. I say more medals, more trophies equals more kids. But I think I have a compromise. And just something to consider. Would it be feasible to have 8 man brackets for kids 8 and under and 16 man brackets for 9 and up?? That would give the younger kids plenty of reward and introduce the older kids to a much more competitive tourney. Just food for thought.

They went from medals for the top 4 in an 8 man bracket to the top 6 in a 16 man bracket. right?  I think that's an ok compromise.

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JC1 I didn't take it personal just thought it was a good opportunity to introduce myself if there were some out there that didn't know who they voted for.

JC1 THANK YOU for the positive words and you are correct. I am Coach Darren Thomas with Raider wrestling. Have been for 7 years now and have enjoyed being a part of all 3 of our Raider programs. Also I'm a proud member of the NKY Mafia!! Lol. No one has a title in the Mafia, so your odds of getting a hit put out on you is even! My family of 8 loves Kentucky Wrestling and you will always see us helping however we can. My Black TLC company trailer is used for nothing but Mats and podium shipping between November and February for tournaments. I am here for Kentucky Wrestling and will be helping the KSWA continue to grow. Jason Brown and Tyler Baines will do their best to continue to do what the past presidents and VP's have done. Jason Moore and John Roth have really left them in good hands and there's not much/ if anything that has to change. If our focus continues to be on the youth and MS wrestlers then we should do nothing but grow. Walking the floor this year at Youth State I seen so many great coaches that work hard at making this sport amazing. My son Cole has benefitted so much from Youth Team Kentucky and Kentucky Wrestling and all I can say is thank you to each of you that put your heart and time into it!!