As a coach who was matside and in front row view of the event I would like to add what I saw. I had a wrestler who was on deck so I had a pretty good view of the events as I was standing right next to the mat. In my 20 years of kids, high school, collegiate, and coaching in wrestling I have seen that lift and return hundreds of times. It was a legal attempt to return an opponent without any intent to harm Yetmar. However, I did agree with the refs call on an illegal slam because of the way Yetmar landed. I viewed it as an unfortunate and unintentional accident. Accidents happen in aggressive combat sports - I was never an overly aggressive wrestler (don't tell my kids that ha!) in my career and was called for illegal slams that were accidents.
As a wrestler you practice a move hundreds of times over the year with your teammates. Every coach teaches to be mentally tough and work through an entire match (especially at the end of the season)- to not let up, and to be aggressive on returns just like an other wrestling position. When working technique you develop a certain flow and expectation in which wrestlers will move when in action. However, anything can happen in a match and when wrestling different styles sometimes a wrestler zigs when you thought he was going to zag. It looked like when fighting to compete hard in a match Bailey kept scrambling and turned a way Blake didn't expect on the return.
I do think the ref had to call it illegal because of the way Bailey landed - that was my initial reaction. Hopefully Bailey is ok and healthy as it has been fun to watch him grow as a wrestler over the past three years.
The good news for Blake is that he a talented freshman and that happened at Sunflower League and not state. Also unfortunate for the rest of the Sunflower League is that Olathe North has some extremely talented and tough young wrestlers:(
