How is the tournament in Topeka going to be handled? Do the kids have to qualify at Ottawa in order to wrestle at Topeka?
Thanks in advance,
C. Wallace
Thank you for your interest. I will answer your questions in reverse order.
The Topeka 6 and Under State: Kansas Tournament of Champions and the Ottawa Kansas 6 & Under State Championship are two independent events. An offer was extended to the Ottawa Mat Masters to combine these events into a single finale tournament, but they declined. We respect their wishes to continue with the event hosted in Ottawa, KS. However, I feel that our concept for an event wrestled in the Kansas Expocentre warrants our proceeding as planned. It is important to note that these events will be held on different days…at least in 2008. If desired, wrestlers can choose to wrestle in both events and the free market process will take care of the rest.
In Topeka, we plan to run a Super-32 bracket. As of now, it will be “open” registration. However, I have asked the 8 Sub-District locations to run a 6 & under qualifier in conjunction with their qualifying tournaments on 3/15. From these tournaments we would advance the top 4 to the Kansas Expocentre…filling out the 32 man bracket. I have received commitments from two of the eight sub-district locations thus far. My preference would be to advance qualifiers “only”. But at this point, my gut tells me that the best scenario will be to advance the qualifiers into the seeded positions and accept at large registration on a first come first serve basis to fill the bracket for this first year. Maybe if a few of you approach your sub-district host sites and encourage them to offer the 6 & under qualifier we can minimize the need for at-large registrants.
We will have 10 full sized mats on the arena floor. Depending on the number of entries we may elect to split one or more mats to facilitate completing in a one day format. Plaques will be awarded to the top eight wrestlers in each bracket. The championship round will be ran on four mats in a Grand format.
I will continue to answer the questions that any of you have. As always, your comments and suggestions on how to make this event the best it can be are appreciated. Keep the ideas flowing; we are listening…