2025 Escape the Rock news - Jan 18 & 19

[dicemen99]

Many of you know that I run this tournament with my good buddy of almost 50 years, Ed Evans. Ed and I met when I went out for wrestling at Newtown MS in 7th grade. Ed started the tournament in 2005 and I joined him in 2007 and with the help of a LOT of people and the support of the best HS staff in PA (biased!) it's been growing ever since.

This year's tournament will be our deepest yet, with over 60 wrestlers that are currently in the top 25 of their weight and over 100 that have been ranked at one time or another. It is a good year for wrestling in this area as the Beast and Powerade were also very strong this year.

We will have a great team race with FCA, Lake Highland, Malvern, St. Ed's and over a dozen teams in the top 50.

152 may be our deepest weight ever. We may have had a better podium (maybe) in the past, but when you have Fargo freestyle AA seeded 17th and a current year Beast medalist seeded 20th that is a banger of a weight. We will have multi- medalists from power states facing off in the first round.

Not so much depth at 215 or 285 though as you have 5 or 6 kids that are really, really good and then STEEP dropoffs. This mirrors the other big tournaments and has been trending for the past few years. Getting very hard to get the football players who have scholarships in place to wrestle their JR and SR years.

107 will be a lot of fun as well as we have a lot of the young elite freshmen who have been making waves and also have a couple of kids who dropped that are looking to put them in their place.

Joey Bachmann and Botero have switched weights and this will be a chance to see where Bachmann stacks up at 127 with Dillard, Brown, O'Neill, etc. Botero took some losses up at 127 earlier in the year but now is back at his best weight.

BUT, the most interesting story to me this weekend will be Tania Fernandes from Archbishop Spalding at 133. She is a U17 World Champ and has recorded some good results - including a win over our 12 seed - in limited folkstyle against the boys. I have never heard of a girl this caliber competing at a middle weight in a prestige tournament before. And she may have a legitimate shot at our podium, which will be harder to make than either one at Hershey. It's a deep weight so she could also be bounced early. How will she do?

 

[BrockBronson]

This is the best Pa event of the year. IMHO

 

[dicemen99]

This is the best Pa event of the year. IMHO

I appreciate the sentiment, but Powerade was very, very good this year. We will have some weight classes that are better but I think overall this year they were a bit deeper. Of course, there have been some years in the last 10 when we were better overall (although many were loathe to acknowledge that).

Last couple of years they have expanded their brackets and upped their depth. We are committed to a 32-man bracket (within a few), which I am very much for. We will never have huge brackets like the Beast. Our coaches appreciate the concentration of talent without having kids wrestle 10+ matches.

We are a good juxtaposition to Powerade. They're a bit bigger and longer. We're Eastern PA and NJ plus others. They're Western PA plus others. They've got tradition. We're newer and louder ( thanks, Jersy, lol). Two good counterweights for the PA season.

Talentwise, we've consistently been top 4 in the country talent wise for a few years now (regular season HS tournament). Powerade has been top 2 some years. I don't think we can ever consistently surpass Beast or Powerade because of our number limit and wrestling on Sunday (which is still a no-no for some states), but we're consistently close now.

There are some that think Reno, Doc B, Cheese head, etc. are better but they are wrong. We now consistently have more talent, both top-end and depth, than any tournament in the country (in-season) other than Ironman, Powerade, and the Beast. Is be happy to debate that with anyone and have the stats to back it.

 

[zzs006]

Many of you know that I run this tournament with my good buddy of almost 50 years, Ed Evans. Ed and I met when I went out for wrestling at Newtown MS in 7th grade. Ed started the tournament in 2005 and I joined him in 2007 and with the help of a LOT of people and the support of the best HS staff in PA (biased!) it's been growing ever since.

This year's tournament will be our deepest yet, with over 60 wrestlers that are currently in the top 25 of their weight and over 100 that have been ranked at one time or another. It is a good year for wrestling in this area as the Beast and Powerade were also very strong this year.

We will have a great team race with FCA, Lake Highland, Malvern, St. Ed's and over a dozen teams in the top 50.

152 may be our deepest weight ever. We may have had a better podium (maybe) in the past, but when you have Fargo freestyle AA seeded 17th and a current year Beast medalist seeded 20th that is a banger of a weight. We will have multi- medalists from power states facing off in the first round.

Not so much depth at 215 or 285 though as you have 5 or 6 kids that are really, really good and then STEEP dropoffs. This mirrors the other big tournaments and has been trending for the past few years. Getting very hard to get the football players who have scholarships in place to wrestle their JR and SR years.

107 will be a lot of fun as well as we have a lot of the young elite freshmen who have been making waves and also have a couple of kids who dropped that are looking to put them in their place.

Joey Bachmann and Botero have switched weights and this will be a chance to see where Bachmann stacks up at 127 with Dillard, Brown, O'Neill, etc. Botero took some losses up at 127 earlier in the year but now is back at his best weight.

BUT, the most interesting story to me this weekend will be Tania Fernandes from Archbishop Spalding at 133. She is a U17 World Champ and has recorded some good results - including a win over our 12 seed - in limited folkstyle against the boys. I have never heard of a girl this caliber competing at a middle weight in a prestige tournament before. And she may have a legitimate shot at our podium, which will be harder to make than either one at Hershey. It's a deep weight so she could also be bounced early. How will she do?

I’m super excited to see Taina Fernandez. She’s the best young girl in the country right now and it might not be close. Dominated U17’s. Won multiple college tournaments last year beating high level competition. Going up against top level high school boys will be a different thing altogether though especially the mat wrestling. Women wrestle freestyle in college so she probably has very limited folk experience. I hope she does well and I’ll definitely be watching

 

[dicemen99]

I’m super excited to see Taina Fernandez. She’s the best young girl in the country right now and it might not be close. Dominated U17’s. Won multiple college tournaments last year beating high level competition. Going up against top level high school boys will be a different thing altogether though especially the mat wrestling. Women wrestle freestyle in college so she probably has very limited folk experience. I hope she does well and I’ll definitely be watching

She wrestled a couple of boys tournaments last year, taking 3rd at the Ray Oliver which is a decent tourney (like Top Hat level) and winning a weak one.

At the Oliver she lost 7-5 to Sean Garretson who is very good (Beast Medalist) and beat Drew Roggie 5-3 (2x National Prep medalist and Beast/ETR blood round). So she is legit in folkstyle and has the ability to medal.

 

[GogglesPaizano]

Many of you know that I run this tournament with my good buddy of almost 50 years, Ed Evans. Ed and I met when I went out for wrestling at Newtown MS in 7th grade. Ed started the tournament in 2005 and I joined him in 2007 and with the help of a LOT of people and the support of the best HS staff in PA (biased!) it's been growing ever since.

This year's tournament will be our deepest yet, with over 60 wrestlers that are currently in the top 25 of their weight and over 100 that have been ranked at one time or another. It is a good year for wrestling in this area as the Beast and Powerade were also very strong this year.

We will have a great team race with FCA, Lake Highland, Malvern, St. Ed's and over a dozen teams in the top 50.

152 may be our deepest weight ever. We may have had a better podium (maybe) in the past, but when you have Fargo freestyle AA seeded 17th and a current year Beast medalist seeded 20th that is a banger of a weight. We will have multi- medalists from power states facing off in the first round.

Not so much depth at 215 or 285 though as you have 5 or 6 kids that are really, really good and then STEEP dropoffs. This mirrors the other big tournaments and has been trending for the past few years. Getting very hard to get the football players who have scholarships in place to wrestle their JR and SR years.

107 will be a lot of fun as well as we have a lot of the young elite freshmen who have been making waves and also have a couple of kids who dropped that are looking to put them in their place.

Joey Bachmann and Botero have switched weights and this will be a chance to see where Bachmann stacks up at 127 with Dillard, Brown, O'Neill, etc. Botero took some losses up at 127 earlier in the year but now is back at his best weight.

BUT, the most interesting story to me this weekend will be Tania Fernandes from Archbishop Spalding at 133. She is a U17 World Champ and has recorded some good results - including a win over our 12 seed - in limited folkstyle against the boys. I have never heard of a girl this caliber competing at a middle weight in a prestige tournament before. And she may have a legitimate shot at our podium, which will be harder to make than either one at Hershey. It's a deep weight so she could also be bounced early. How will she do?