Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion High School Tournament OW...Upper weights get hosed

Most tournaments have an Outstanding Wrestler award. It's usually not a bigger wrestler.

Isaac Dulgarian of St Thomas Aquinas was the Outstanding Wrestler at this weekend's Bob Kuhn Prairie Senior Classic in Hays. He had a great tournament en route to winning the 138lb title. He pinned Corey Spader of Spring Hill in the 1st period of his finals match. Spader is a fine wrestler and is currently ranked 6th in 4A.

Meanwhile, Preston Weigel of Hays High won his finals contest in a matchup of top ranked 195 pounders. 5A Weigel beat 4A Tyler Gastineau of Goodland 15-0 with the match ending in the 2nd period. Weigel and Dulgarian looked fantastic throughout the tourney.

Not to take anything away from Dulgarian, but I thought Weigel should have won the award (and trying not to sound like a Hays homer). One of the problems is many OW sheets are turned in before 195 lbs. I'm sure some coaches saw Dulgarian's match and said, "that's my guy" and turned in their ballet. Others filled out their sheet early because they left before the finals concluded. Thoughts?

The 195 and 220lb classes at the Hays tournament were some of the most physical and athletic I have seen all year. Like you said, many teams/coaches leave when they are finished competing so they miss out on the big guys.

Holiday, I couldn't agree more. Dulgarian, is a stud, and won OW of this tournament last year as a freshman if I remember correct. But Preston was absutltly dominant as well. Dulgarian knocked off the #5 ranked kid in 4A with a quick pin in the finals which was impressive. But I believe Weigel should have won OW as he defeated the #1 kid in 4A as well as the #3 ranked kid all class by a score of 15-0 early in period 2. But as you said sometimes big guys get overlooked, due to wrestling at the end of the finals.

The thing is, I am guessing neither one of these fine athletes will lose any sleep over getting this award or not, as they both will accomplish many things and gather many awards throughout their wrestling careers. Great tournament to both of you wrestlers, and everyone else that competed this weekend. I enjoyed a fine weekend of watching wrestling.

Preston gets my vote as well. Gastineau is the #1 ranked wrestler in 4A right now and Preston was in total control the whole match and made Gastineau look like an unranked wrestler. No offense towards Gastineau, who is a very good wrestler deserving of his #1 ranking, but that shows how good Preston actually was during that tournament. I believe Preston is probably the most dominating wrestler in the state regardless of weight and always deserves OW. This weekend he will have a very difficult bracket in Garden City, with Archer from Newton and Lofflin of Baca County, yet I bet Preston makes it look easy again. Maybe he will get the credit he deserves this weekend.

Yes weigel did look very impressive but dulgurian was sick. He had 34 takedowns in his first three matches and then stuck his kid in the finals in 20 seconds. Its hard to beat that.

Do a random draw and keep multiple mats going for the finals. So if you draw starting at 170 for instance, do that and 182 at the same time, or I saw a tournament in Vilseck do a format in the finals where they started at the middle two weights and then one class would go up and the other down, so 160 and 170 matches would be followed by 152 and 182 and so on.

I think that they should draw for which weight class goes first in the finals in all tournaments. That would make it more interesting.