Sectional Assignments 2021

[thequad]

I was looking at the Two Rivers Regional and it is stacked.  There are 35 returning sectional qualifiers; 19 state qualifiers; 10 state placers.  Along with the past three team state champs (2020 Wrightstown, 2019 Freedom, 2018 Luxemburg-Casco).

Here's all of the returning sectional qualifiers
Brillion:
106 - Trenton Nicklaus, Sectionals
113 - Grant Geiger, 5th place
120 - Sean McConnel, Sectionals
145 - Garnett Stebane, 2nd place
152 - Karter Trace, Sectionals
160 - Carter Stebane, 2018 6th place
170 - Garrett Kilgas, SQ
182 - Colin Schuman, Sectionals
195 - Sam Galoff, SQ
220 - Levi Galoff, 2018 5th place

Denmark:
106 - Alec Bergelin, Sectionals
113 - Brett Soquet, Sectionals
145 - Ethan Schwartz, 3rd place
152 - Reece Piontek, SQ
170 - Eagan Babiash, Sectionals
195 - Luke Abrahamson, Sectionals
220 - Charlie St. Peter, Sectionals

Freedom:
132 - Carsten McHugh, 2018 SQ
138 - Ben Bredael, SQ
152 - Justin Vosters, Sectionals
170 - Troy Nabbefeld, SQ

Luxemburg-Casco:
106 - Easton Worachek, 5th place
113 - Tyler Derenne, Sectionals
120 - Hunter Joniaux, SQ
138 - Ryan Routhieaux, Sectionals
152 - Isaac Blohowiak, SQ
220 - Travis Legrave, Sectionals
285 - Kyle Kroll, Sectionals

Two Rivers:
132 - Bailey Thielen, 2nd place
138 - Matty Bianchi, 1st place

Wrightstown:
113 - Nick Alexander, Sectionals
120 - Kaden Verbeten, Sectionals
126 - Kaden Koltz, 2nd place
182 - Logan Koel, SQ
195 - Quincy Kistler, 2nd place

For LC Legrave and Kroll were SQ

20 SQ

[wrastle63]

All sectionals are not created equal. We will not make it completely even or fair but that isn't the point. The point is common sense to divide the top teams up to at least get to sectionals and get an opportunity to dual for the chance to go to state. Again.... we already know the placements 7 months before the season.

In D1 split the "top" team and put the "2nd and 3rd" best team in the other regionals. Rest is geography.
In D2/D3 split the "top 4 teams" into their own regionals. The rest is geography.

It wouldn't be that hard to do. Meet after Christmas sometime and look at the top teams based on criteria and take a vote. Would make for a better team sectional that's for sure.

[ramjet]

Few things here; I am outraged at the total lack of understanding of the WIAA them seem to ignore the makeup of the teams and wrestling in this state. For goodness sakes even with TRACK it becomes pretty darn easy. But like said they are either lazy or arrogant.....

Keep in mind the WIAA is a network of good ole boys. Change comes slow and change is rare. In most cases take the easy road .......

Correct; schools sign contracts and those contracts (which I have signed) are very explicit in the language that you turn over that sport to the WIAA for management and rules. You agree to abide by the management and rules they set and you sign contracts for each sport. They are legally binding and very tough to beat. They the WIAA as part of that will in most cases rule and defend that rule in court proceeding if challenged. There is also reduction in liability insurance as member school. Takes much off the plate for ADs and Administration of member schools. I.e "The WIAA says we cannot do that." 

That said they should not be above criticism and frankly it takes a community in other words a consortium of member schools that band together to get their attention. Even with that, good luck.

Alternatives? ZERO

[npope]

Few things here; I am outraged at the total lack of understanding of the WIAA them seem to ignore the makeup of the teams and wrestling in this state. For goodness sakes even with TRACK it becomes pretty darn easy. But like said they are either lazy or arrogant.....

Keep in mind the WIAA is a network of good ole boys. Change comes slow and change is rare. In most cases take the easy road .......

Correct; schools sign contracts and those contracts (which I have signed) are very explicit in the language that you turn over that sport to the WIAA for management and rules. You agree to abide by the management and rules they set and you sign contracts for each sport. They are legally binding and very tough to beat. They the WIAA as part of that will in most cases rule and defend that rule in court proceeding if challenged. There is also reduction in liability insurance as member school. Takes much off the plate for ADs and Administration of member schools. I.e "The WIAA says we cannot do that." 

That said they should not be above criticism and frankly it takes a community in other words a consortium of member schools that band together to get their attention. Even with that, good luck.

Alternatives? ZERO

It sounds as though you have more experience with the WIAA than I ever did. That said, the way you describe it sounds like they are doing the schools a favor by managing the sports tournament system for the schools. The state's schools are the only game in town for the WIAA, as well...and the schools hold the money. As far as a business model, it looks like more of a game of chicken to me, and the schools are chicken...or the schools simply don't care or are too arrogant with respect to wrestling and other lesser sports. To be honest, I think that is what it is, school administrators simply don't care about this issue for wrestling...and the WIAA sees that and makes it a low priority. There seem to be much better strategies to getting the WIAA to care than trying to lobby them individually (or as anything other than a school district). An old adage suggests, "He who pays the piper calls the tune." Schools should be calling the tune.

[3boys]

I still think the coaches association is the key. The WBCA has set in motion many changes, number of contests from 20 to 22 for example. The WFCA has realigned the entire state into conferences for FB that starts next year. Fb took years but the BB changes come pretty quickly. My point is the WWCA can affect change if it wants to. We have lots of things this forum wants: double elimination at the state tourney, change 7/7 contests, change team tourney qualifying, seeding of individual sectionals and???. WE need to decide what is most important and concentrate on 1 thing as a time.

[crossface21]

I have no idea if this plays into how the WIAA selects Regional/Sectional teams, but we received an email about 2 weeks ago from the WIAA to see if we were interested in hosting the Team Sectional. In the email it said only 3 teams in our Sectional had put in to host the Regional/Sectional tournaments and we were one of them so we were awarded the Regional. Another one of the  3 teams got the Sectional. That left 1 team and they were not interested in hosting the Team Sectional. They put it out to the rest of the teams and nobody wanted it so it went to the team also hosting the Individual Sectional.

So maybe who has said they are willing to host plays a part in how they divide up the teams?

Honestly we're all throwing darts at the WIAA's line of thinking because there is no rhyme or reason to it.

[PAUL]

To me, it's just really really dumb and arrogant and sad that they leave it like this, especially these days with all of the data and tools basically at the touch of a button.  I don't want to start any arguments and I mean no disrespect to any divisions or areas, but it's really unfortunate that a single D2 regional is possibly as tough or tougher than many/most D1 sectionals.   And all the WIAA would need to do is CARE for about 1 hour, shift around a handful of teams, repost the PDFs, and call it good.  Not perfect, and there still would be some complaints, some even valid ones, but basically to modify what i would consider a gross oversight.  I am not from one of these areas, but if I was a parent of a good (but not great) kid at one of these schools I would definitely be looking for a way to make my complaints be heard.  Yes there are bigger problems going on these days, but SHAME on you WIAA for not even caring....

[thequad]

Is there any way this can possibly rectified while we have all this time before regionals?

[Numbers]

So people on this board know adding Mukwonago into the Stoughton sectional is crazy.  I think what needs to be discussed is how we all come to this conclusion.

Everyone wants the WIAA to make it better.  How would the WIAA know what that should look like if they wanted more competitively balanced regionals/sectionals?

I think there would have to be a metric pushed by the coaches association.  I will post two ideas for comment.  They say lead with your strongest argument...

1)  Take the results of the current year state tournament and assign a point value to each team.  I propose 1 point for state qualifier (non-placer), 1.2 points for placed 4th-6th, 1.4 point for placed 1st-3rd.

This will identify the stronger programs and also identify the many teams with zero state qualifiers.  Then by looking at historical data, someone on this board could recommend a minimum point total and/or maximum point total that each sectional should have.  Then also have a target for each regional (so some of that D2 Green Bay regional gets separated at least until sectionals).

2)  Possibly consider the point totals above for just the returning underclassmen for tweaking between regionals/sectionals.

[LKing]

Everyone wants the WIAA to make it better.  How would the WIAA know what that should look like if they wanted more competitively balanced regionals/sectionals?


Seriously?  They are the governing body of Wisconsin sports and you're questioning how they know what it would look like?  In less than 3 minutes anyone with internet access can tell you that D2 regional is pure stupid.  Put 1 goat in charge of wrestling and the regionals would look better than they are now. 

[wrestlemania]

"I still cannot believe...
1) that the state tournament does not have double elimination
2) That we still start our team tournament with and individual scoring format at regionals
3) That we do not have a team tournament bracket that is seeded like other sports
4) That we continue to have regionals and sectionals wasting everyone's time by spreading things over 2 weekends and requiring coaches and wrestlers to give up two Saturdays."

Well believe it and it's not because the WIAA wants it to be this way forever. If the state wrestling coaches association wanted said changes and insisted upon them, they would get them, just like the WFCA got with football playoff seeding. If there's no incentive to change from the actual coaches within the sport, why would the WIAA change anything? They're assuming everything is hunky-dory because they don't hear otherwise. Their people certainly don't hang around these boards and whether you want to believe it or not, most state high school wrestling coaches don't seem to mind the tournament set-up because it's been this way for nearly the entire century so far.

[wrestlemania]

"So maybe who has said they are willing to host plays a part in how they divide up the teams?"

If based on geography, which is pretty much how divy up teams for a lot of sports like wrestling, that would make a lot sense in terms of how they make these decisions. If so, the schools which don't want to volunteer to host any events and then inappropriate term1 about their assignments need to look in a mirror.

Some of you people think that their jobs as administrators is to monitor rankings on WiWrestling and other metrics on Trackwrestling. I can imagine that's not what they do or feel they have the time to do so or would understand it as an objective criteria the way fans and maybe some coaches would. It would be nice if they had one person responsible for wrestling and that was their sole focus and this person made the decisions on the tournament and other aspects of the sport. But I don't think they have the staff to do that. So you get what you get from them.

[downtown]

"I still cannot believe...
1) that the state tournament does not have double elimination
2) That we still start our team tournament with and individual scoring format at regionals
3) That we do not have a team tournament bracket that is seeded like other sports
4) That we continue to have regionals and sectionals wasting everyone's time by spreading things over 2 weekends and requiring coaches and wrestlers to give up two Saturdays."

Well believe it and it's not because the WIAA wants it to be this way forever. If the state wrestling coaches association wanted said changes and insisted upon them, they would get them, just like the WFCA got with football playoff seeding. If there's no incentive to change from the actual coaches within the sport, why would the WIAA change anything? They're assuming everything is hunky-dory because they don't hear otherwise. Their people certainly don't hang around these boards and whether you want to believe it or not, most state high school wrestling coaches don't seem to mind the tournament set-up because it's been this way for nearly the entire century so far.

Unfortunately this is most likely correct.  If the top people from the coaches association wanted it changed bad enough it would be changed.  Sad that it isn't changed.  I have no idea why the coaches wouldn't want it changed.  Get single elimination changed, get seeded at the state tournament changed.  It is embarrassing that it isn't.  Balance the regionals and sectionals.  Anybody that has a vested interest in wrestling could do all of this within a couple of hours.

[asdfg]

Maybe this and many of the other easy fixes that never get done show that a majority of coaches/AD's truly don't care about progressing the WHOLE state, and care only about the team they have. 

Heck, why complain and advocate for a better system when a huge percentage of the studs get put into 1 regional/sectional.  As a coach that works away from those historically tough sectionals it just makes your job easier getting your kids to State.  Congrats.

[bigoil]

Maybe this and many of the other easy fixes that never get done show that a majority of coaches/AD's truly don't care about progressing the WHOLE state, and care only about the team they have. 

Heck, why complain and advocate for a better system when a huge percentage of the studs get put into 1 regional/sectional.  As a coach that works away from those historically tough sectionals it just makes your job easier getting your kids to State.  Congrats.

Bingo.

Do you think the #3/4 teams in the state would advocate for separating Muk/Sto, heck no.