wvmat.com

We would like to thank all the teams, fans, and volunteers who helped to make our 2018 Garry Bender Raider Cup tournament a success. We will try to improve upon it where we can. Special thanks to Coach Bender for taking part. There are some important points I'd like to make note of:

1. A couple teams had some wrestlers missing due to football championships.
2. Several kids on many teams are not yet down to their projected weight.
3. Some kids may have been taking their ACT.

The tournament moved along relatively smoothly and managed to stay ahead of schedule.

4. It is important to know that our tournament was not a "team duals" by definition. We did not keep dual match scores. We did keep teams together in what appeared to be duals, but our format was basically individual weight class pools with an individual finals round. Since teams were not free to adjust their line-ups or substitute individuals, it may not be totally accurate to claim a particular dual match score. You can see the individual place-winners on the results page of WVMat.

Congratulations to Braxton County for winning this year.

I am glad this topic was raised because I planned to bring up the subject myself.

For the readers, what they did in Roane was brilliant!

As my friend "TrueSouthFanInBraxtonCounty" explained it to me this morning, the teams were in two pools. The teams wrestled 4 matches.

All individuals who went 4-0 wrestled each other to determine the individual winner for each weight class.

The two 4-0 wrestled for first. The two 3-1 wrestled for third and so on. I hope wrestling goes in this direction for all "duals" meets.

Gains:
1. Top competition gets to wrestle each other.
2. Better chance of getting five actual matches.
3. Top wrestlers are not penalized because they are on a team with many forfeits.

I recall going to the Wheeling Park Duals last season. Three of the top AAA 160s were in the house. All three of them went 9 or 10 and 0 for the weekend. None of them wrestled each other.

This hybrid approach used in Roane County is brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!