All in all I'd guess EC is embarrassed by the tourney this year. Apparently refs weren't scheduled by the state, and nobody followed up from the school to check up on the state. Refs were eventually found, but the tournament was already compromised. Wrestling started about two hours late, switched to single elimination for the first round. All went well til about 2pm when it was decided to take all winners of consi QF contest for fifth place, and champ semi losers contest for third. The resulting revamp of the brackets crashed the system and the tournament stopped for another two hours.
Highlights from the wrestling:
145 - Veleas over Roberts 8-7
132 - Julian over Accousti 4-2 OT
126 - Hudson over Folino 12-6
Unreal
What teams were there?
1. Enfield 134½, 2. Manchester 120, 3. East Hartford 111, 4. Northwestern 106, 5. Canton 98, 6. Notre Dame-West Haven 97, 7. Glastonbury 90, 8. RHAM 84, 9. Newington 79, 10. East Catholic 77, 11. Newtown 74, 12. Joel Barlow 57½, 13. Berlin 54, 14. Maloney 49, 15. Stafford 48, 16. Rocky Hill 40, 17. East Windsor 18, 18. Derby 12, 19. Seymour 4, 20. Rockville 0
How come Barlow doesn’t jump into some real tournaments ? Are they trying to pad their kids records nice and easy? I know they have a few good wrestlers but why does it seem like every tournament or dual meet they do is so easy? If I wasa parent of the couple good kids I wouldn’t be happy about that. Nothing better than seeing all the top kids before opens.
I think some of there's guys hit the mail on the head in terms of teams like Barlow. There is a curve where you need enough depth to compete at a higher level. Totally agree with you.
I think your missing the point. Joel Barlow ONLY has a few good wrestlers, 3-4 good guys isn't a team, it isn't a program. They finished 12th at that tournament with 9 wrestlers entered an one guy reaching the finals. To me that sound like they went to a tournament that was PERFECT for them as a team. If we keep the focus as a state on only our elites and fail to develop the mid/lower level wrestlers and make sure our teams have 13-14 weights filled, then CT wrestling is going to start dying out. We already have less than 25% of our teams filling their lineup, with another 25% that fill 8 or less weights and participation has been dropping every year for years.