It’s more of the lack of seating for the event and the PA announcer constantly telling people to sit in the bleachers when there is not an open seat. Referees kicking people out from sitting mat side when there is no space in the bleachers when they are just trying to watch their kids wrestle, to a point today with everyone standing and blocking exits, might’ve been a fire hazard!
FYI, we did not finish at Mentor until about 8 pm. I don't really think 2 divisions is anywhere close to happening but we should not be cramming a 16 person bracketed tournament into one day. After all, it is the exact same size as a boy's tournament (406 matches) so why the difference? The quality of the wrestling yesterday was quite good and that makes the event run longer.
I'm not sure that OHSAA is willing to do that yet. There are approximately 100 schools that met the TEAM status. Looking at the boys, it looks like that number has to be 163 to get a new division.
You're numbers are a bit off. They are actually much higher. Those numbers you list are only the schools that qualified a wrestlers to state.
Thanks for the insight on Mentor
Findlay I believe finished around 5:30p but still was a long day. 8pm is very late.
It is but as much as I hate to admit it, it would become a quality vs quantity issue.
Adding mats you still need officials and seeing how some of the stripes get treated its hard not to see why those numbers are dwindling. You get into the waters of officials quickly with Quantity vs Quality. Saw a few things this weekend but was nice to see them coming together on the mat to make the correct calls. There's one or two officials over the years I "owe a drink to" from heat of the moment comments. It was alot for one day but until the actual amount of teams (7+ weights) increases the change we see will be slow and steady
I think a lot of those here likely were not around for those years so they don't have that perspective. They don't know the time, effort, and energies that were put in during those years. It is not going to be 2 days anytime soon. You would have referee issues that you do not want to have in an event with a trip to state on the line. There are not many schools that are girls wrestling schools that can hold 4-5 mats and provide the seating that makes everyone happy.
Several issues/problems with each of these. They might not be impossible to overcome but they are not as easy as it is to write them out.
I went to mentor in the meat grinder days and this is a compliment. Because it means girls wrestling is relevant and growing!!!
Thank you for your feedback, unfortunately your responses on my second options are incorrect as there wouldn’t be weigh ins as they were weigh outs the night before. Most events start at 9am all year long. Plus weigh ins do not need to be 2 hours. Minimum of 1 hour is required if we want to get technical.
Lets be honest the ones that do Championship rounds 1 and 2 on Friday night and do not start consis until Saturday are the ones looking to make the most bang for their buck, because you get every wrestler and their family back the next day. The OHSAA makes more $$$ and the concessions get more as well. The easiest way to fix the Mentor bracket is to have it be a 2 day tourney or have some of those schools go out to another district. We had schools who were actually closer to Mentor than almost half the tournament go to Findlay, why not send some of the others? How is it a school like Mapleton or Alliance goes to Findlay, while a school like Northwestern goes to Mentor? Or how is a Steubenville a school on the Ohio River coming to the shores of Lake Erie to wrestle? I do get the schools who have teams get to pick their sectional, but there has to be a way to even things out a little better. When you have teams coming from 2 hours away to wrestle and do not finish until 8 pm that makes for a tough work day the next with it being on a sunday. Finding a larger place to have it would not change much when it comes to monitoring wait time as well. There was great wrestling at Mentor with many matches going the full 3 periods
Alignments are very odd.. We had 2 hours & 45 min to get to mentor for districts… big walnut would’ve only been about 40 min lol
