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PA HS Wrestling thread

Tom Housenick replied to that. NDGP coaches gave those guys the option of sitting out state duals, due to their sacrifices during the season.

Good for them but sucks royally for other teams that might have gone to or advanced in state duals instead.

OBTW, Southern smoked NDGP, big enough that those 3 guys wouldn't have mattered.
 
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I wonder what his academics are like. Not exactly a group of top tier (or even mid-tier) academic institutions
As a graduate of Iowa State (college of veterinary medicine) I must respond. "Or even mid-tier" ???? College of engineering is one of the best. Great college for architecture. Fantastic for agriculture and agriculture economics. Maybe not everyone is suited for an Ivy league school. JMO.
 
As a graduate of Iowa State (college of veterinary medicine) I must respond. "Or even mid-tier" ???? College of engineering is one of the best. Great college for architecture. Fantastic for agriculture and agriculture economics. Maybe not everyone is suited for an Ivy league school. JMO.
Sorry - I was being a dick. My dad is a Cornell PHD and DVM and taught gross anatomy and other things for close to 4 decades, so I’m very pro Vet. As a faculty brat, I got free rein at Penn’s New Bolton Center, which was cool. I’m sure he had some cronies in Ames
 
Watch NDGP land numerous upper weight transfers. They are probably 2 years away from being tough at almost all weights.
Losing Crookham was tough loss.
 
Watch NDGP land numerous upper weight transfers. They are probably 2 years away from being tough at almost all weights.
Losing Crookham was tough loss.

Haven’t they kind of already? Tettemer transferred in from Del Val in New Jersey to wrestle 189 this year. LaPenna was a freshman at 152 and could project up to 189, Garcia is only a sophomore at 160 and still growing. Sine transferred in from Northampton and was a state qualifier last year, before getting blocked out by a limited postseason this year - he took third at D11 behind the state 3rd and 6th place finisher and top 2 advanced. I think the Ramsey kid they have coming in next year is already a middleweight in 8th grade.

What will be interesting is how ND’s pipelines continue. Crookham leaving was an obvious blow, but so was Red Hawk affiliating with Bethlehem Catholic - that partnership was how they landed Chletsos and Cerniglia. Kasak was on his way there until that relationship fell apart, and now that club is merged with Weaver Elite and Notre Dame isn’t fishing in that pond anymore. Since then, they’ve gone much heavier in New Jersey with Garcia, Unger, and Tettemer, or got Smith and LaPenna from total nontraditional schools in Dieruff and Bangor. Will be int
 
Can D-11 traditional public school powers Easton, Nazareth, and Northampton keep up?

Will Saucon Valley have talent besides Crookham?
 
The PIAA....making sure the wrestling mat is uneven for ALL non charter non recruiting schools...since 1899
 
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Can D-11 traditional public school powers Easton, Nazareth, and Northampton keep up?

Will Saucon Valley have talent besides Crookham?

Saucon had Jake Jones take 3rd at 170 as a sophomore, had a junior medal at 215. A quick look at their D11 entries and they only had 1 senior. Chad Shirk does a really nice job with that program (with the Rohn’s), they’ll put a good team around Crookham.

Depends what you mean by keep up? All three of those schools still have pretty strong infrastructures. Lots of youth programs with coaches that know what they’re doing, the cache of kids who are good athletes wanting to wrestle, access to local clubs (which is a double edged sword) and high school staffs with track records of success.

Nazareth has obviously had the most success, and they’ll be good as long as Dave Crowell is there. That gives them the highest floor. I think very highly of Seth Lisa at Northampton and think he does a fantastic job of developing “program” guys. He’s had studs in Chlebove, Condomitti, etc, but they use their junior high and JV program the best of anybody and seem like they always have a one year starter that medals at states - that created depth is what keeps them finishing in the top 5. Easton’s been in the wilderness for a while, which is another thread, but the raw material is still there and Jody Karam certainly has built really good teams with a lot less to work with at Liberty than he now has at Easton.

With anything, for those schools to keep up they need to create depth while hanging onto their studs. Part of that is navigating relationships with clubs - there are places where if your kids train there, they’re likely not going to end up wrestling for you. That’s part of what got Jamarr Billman in such a civil war with parents was he tried to sway kids away from going to clubs that were Notre Dame and Becahi feeder programs (particularly kids who wanted to do Junior High competitions with the school but not practice with the school) and parents got pissed, and transferred to Notre Dame and Becahi. You look at how many Nazareth and Northampton kids are from Dark Knights - part of that is comfort with the fact that kids can get really good training partners and workouts and they won’t get courted to go to Catholic school while they’re there. Keeping kids in your room, where the grass is greener within a fifteen minute drive of your front door is really hard.

The developing depth part is the other challenge. Gone are the days when virtually all kids come up in community programs, wrestle for your junior high and kind of start getting serious, then do most of their developing in high school and in a high school room. In that world, being Easton, Nazareth, or Northampton was a huge advantage because you’d built a system over decades and everything was under your control. That also meant the in season development you did with “regular” kids went a lot further. The challenge now is to find ways to get ALL of your kids year round high quality training situations, not just the ones that are super serious, Division I wrestlers. And frankly, we’re reaching a point in youth/HS sports where kids are either 150% in or not in at all, and so much of being a really good public school program involves getting 100% development out of kids who are 50% wrestlers.

So the short answer is, some combination of the traditional powers will be in the mix in any given year, but the days of a school going to 8 straight state dual finals or winning the individual tourney title 8 times in twelve years are not coming back.
 
Saucon had Jake Jones take 3rd at 170 as a sophomore, had a junior medal at 215. A quick look at their D11 entries and they only had 1 senior. Chad Shirk does a really nice job with that program (with the Rohn’s), they’ll put a good team around Crookham.

Depends what you mean by keep up? All three of those schools still have pretty strong infrastructures. Lots of youth programs with coaches that know what they’re doing, the cache of kids who are good athletes wanting to wrestle, access to local clubs (which is a double edged sword) and high school staffs with track records of success.

Nazareth has obviously had the most success, and they’ll be good as long as Dave Crowell is there. That gives them the highest floor. I think very highly of Seth Lisa at Northampton and think he does a fantastic job of developing “program” guys. He’s had studs in Chlebove, Condomitti, etc, but they use their junior high and JV program the best of anybody and seem like they always have a one year starter that medals at states - that created depth is what keeps them finishing in the top 5. Easton’s been in the wilderness for a while, which is another thread, but the raw material is still there and Jody Karam certainly has built really good teams with a lot less to work with at Liberty than he now has at Easton.

With anything, for those schools to keep up they need to create depth while hanging onto their studs. Part of that is navigating relationships with clubs - there are places where if your kids train there, they’re likely not going to end up wrestling for you. That’s part of what got Jamarr Billman in such a civil war with parents was he tried to sway kids away from going to clubs that were Notre Dame and Becahi feeder programs (particularly kids who wanted to do Junior High competitions with the school but not practice with the school) and parents got pissed, and transferred to Notre Dame and Becahi. You look at how many Nazareth and Northampton kids are from Dark Knights - part of that is comfort with the fact that kids can get really good training partners and workouts and they won’t get courted to go to Catholic school while they’re there. Keeping kids in your room, where the grass is greener within a fifteen minute drive of your front door is really hard.

The developing depth part is the other challenge. Gone are the days when virtually all kids come up in community programs, wrestle for your junior high and kind of start getting serious, then do most of their developing in high school and in a high school room. In that world, being Easton, Nazareth, or Northampton was a huge advantage because you’d built a system over decades and everything was under your control. That also meant the in season development you did with “regular” kids went a lot further. The challenge now is to find ways to get ALL of your kids year round high quality training situations, not just the ones that are super serious, Division I wrestlers. And frankly, we’re reaching a point in youth/HS sports where kids are either 150% in or not in at all, and so much of being a really good public school program involves getting 100% development out of kids who are 50% wrestlers.

So the short answer is, some combination of the traditional powers will be in the mix in any given year, but the days of a school going to 8 straight state dual finals or winning the individual tourney title 8 times in twelve years are not coming back.
Not sure this new generation has a grasp on tradition or what it means to have school pride. I know when central mountain combined BEN, Sugar Valley and Lock Haven some were left with a vacuum in regards to school pride and starting tradition. Almost twenty years later we finally have a good core of alumni who promote school pride and getting kids involved with the tradition of the school. Makes you wonder how much parents moving into school districts they didn't attend plays into quick decisions to move kids from school to school.
 
Not sure this new generation has a grasp on tradition or what it means to have school pride. I know when central mountain combined BEN, Sugar Valley and Lock Haven some were left with a vacuum in regards to school pride and starting tradition. Almost twenty years later we finally have a good core of alumni who promote school pride and getting kids involved with the tradition of the school. Makes you wonder how much parents moving into school districts they didn't attend plays into quick decisions to move kids from school to school.
You sound like the Beach Boys. Be true to your school. The proliferation of private/parochial schools that have decided to become great wrestling programs has cut into a lot of public school programs, seriously diminishing their strength. And with suburban growth, public high schools have split, further diluting the talent pool. So your Central Mountain example works both ways. My sons went to one of those schools that split in two after they graduated. We can't figure out which one to root for.
 
You sound like the Beach Boys. Be true to your school. The proliferation of private/parochial schools that have decided to become great wrestling programs has cut into a lot of public school programs, seriously diminishing their strength. And with suburban growth, public high schools have split, further diluting the talent pool. So your Central Mountain example works both ways. My sons went to one of those schools that split in two after they graduated. We can't figure out which one to root for.
Central mountain wasn't a result of a split but rather the combining of three separate high schools who competed against each other the new school is where the issue of school pride comes in. Two of those schools lock haven and ben were huge rivals now they are one lol. Tough deal when mom came from Ben and dad came from lock haven lol. Anyhow I get your point either way.
 
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So, the PIAA is looking into something that they will have no control over? I don't get it.

Penn-and-Teller-Fool-Us-1-1200x900.jpg
 
My buddy is friends with Pitzer’s high school coach and claims the coach says he wants to go to Penn State. Three year wait at 197 or HW might dissuade him.
 
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My buddy is friends with Pitzer’s high school coach and claims the coach says he wants to go to Penn State. Three year wait at 197 or HW might dissuade him.
If he's willing to grayshirt + redshirt, he'd only have to wait 1 year at 197. Maybe 2 yrs at HWT if Kerk gets an Olympic shirt in 2024 and Snacks starts.

Of course he'd be a 4-yr starter at many schools.
 
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