Wednesday is a prime example why things need to change on the high school wrestling scene.
Bishop Manogue showed up with just seven wrestlers, and the obvious result was a 72-12 Carson win. It was one of the fastest matches of the year, taking about 30 minutes to complete.
I considered it a complete waste of time. It wasn’t an aberration, it was the norm. Duals are a waste of time in Northern Nevada. Few teams are capable of fielding a complete 14-man team week in and week out. Duals are littered with forfeits.
I have a few ideas on the subject and tossed them out to Carson coach Paul Carter after the meet. He admitted the coaches and NIAA need to look at some changes in the sport.
Here are a few of my suggestions.
• Don’t separate by leagues. Have four host sites every week and have three teams at each site. Kids wrestle 4-5 times a day at tournaments, so there is no reason why they can’t wrestle twice in one night.
“Three way duals would be fine with me,” Carter said. “Having three teams instead of two you would be wrestling for an hour or hour and a half instead of a half hour.”
Carter even suggested having out-of-league duals.
• Another thing to look at if you don’t like double duals and one big league, do what golf does and have mini tournaments where all six teams are there. Sure it might make for a long day, but it wouldn’t be a waste of time. Wrestlers would be given points based on where they finished each week, and that would qualify them for the regional event.
• Go to a state meet that encompasses all divisions. Anybody with half a brain knows wrestling is an individual sport, and a kid from a small, rural school is capable of wrestling against a kid from Carson High.
If California can have one big state meet with all of its classifications, then why can’t Nevada?
Carter indicated coaches have talked about having a Super State after each class has its own meet. Not the same folks, and anybody with half a brain definitely knows that.
March Madness is one of the greatest sports events in the world, and people are always waiting anxiously to see if a No. 15 or 16 seed can slay a No. 1 or 2. It’s what makes the tournament so great. Heck, I’d like to see the tournament go to 128, then maybe you could get rid of all the conference tournaments that clog the airwaves in late February and early March.
From what I’ve been told by coaches in the north is Las Vegas coaches are the biggest reason why there isn’t one big state meet. Could it be the big dogs are worried they might not always be the big dogs?
If I’m an athlete, I want to win against the best competition in the state. I want to wrestle the best whether a kid is from Lone Pine or Cimmaron Memorial.
• Don’t start dual meets until one week after the state football playoffs. That way we don’t have the fiasco we had this year involving Damonte Ranch and Carson.
If you start basketball and wrestling a week later you don’t have any issues because everybody is starting at full strength.
This isn’t rocket science folks. This is just common sense, which I’m finding a lot of administrators in Northern Nevada don’t possess.
•••
It was a rather ugly scene Friday night after the Manogue-Carson girls game.
As Carson coach Nate Tolbert shook hands with Manogue coach Craig Holt words were traded, and the exchange became heated. Carson High administrators moved in before the situation escalated any further.
Tolbert was questioning why Holt’s daughter, Breezi, was in the game late in the fourth quarter, and why the Miners were pressing throughout the game. Both valid points.
There’s a thing called sportsmanship, and that obviously eluded the Manogue folks.
Holt argued to Tolbert he did play all his kids, which he did. However, Holt missed the point.
There’s NO need to press, shoot 3-pointers or have any of your starters on the floor in a 40-point game. At this point in the season if your second and third-stringers can’t play a full quarter without a break then the coaching staff hasn’t done a good job of getting them in shape.
Come on coach, get a clue.