PIAA 2023 postseason
- Thread starter El-Jefe
- Start date
Well if there that Good the extra losses shouldnt matter. Win your region and get a top 4 seed and perform on the big stage since your so battle tested.
They were all in Hershey last year
Lebin State Runnerup at 126
Shaw 3rd Place at 126
Simcox 5th place at 132
Mcintyre 1-2 DNP at 120
Talent level of these 4 is about equal in my opinion. I would lean Simcox to Win it all.
Any intel on Conner Harer? Seems like a legit prospect, college choices and/or options
If the seeds don't matter, then PIAA should go back to the unseeded, full pre-drawn brackets.
D4 should be fireworks
Little Kolb has his work cut out for him 107. Colton Wade wins 114. Harer smokes Wentzel again. This time old man Wentzel gets tossed. Brandt is the real deal. Could he give Forest a match? Ulrich should win 127. Scottie Johnson Vs Heckman could be a district, regional and state final. The young Buck, Reagen Milheim wins his first of four d4 titles. How did this kid not dominate in jr high. Wirnsberger Vs Milheim round 2. Conner destroys everyone. He won’t have a match at regionals or states. Faith in Brokenshire to put this one together. Benton definitely wrestles one of the harder d4 schedules. This is why Evan wins 160.
Riley parker looked tough all year. He wins D4 and will bring home a top three PIAA medal. Don’t sleep on Kaden Rodarmel, he is a dark horse taking third last week. Big Austin or Ulrich doesn’t break a sweat. Both top three this year
Little Kolb has his work cut out for him 107. Colton Wade wins 114. Harer smokes Wentzel again. This time old man Wentzel gets tossed. Brandt is the real deal. Could he give Forest a match? Ulrich should win 127. Scottie Johnson Vs Heckman could be a district, regional and state final. The young Buck, Reagen Milheim wins his first of four d4 titles. How did this kid not dominate in jr high. Wirnsberger Vs Milheim round 2. Conner destroys everyone. He won’t have a match at regionals or states. Faith in Brokenshire to put this one together. Benton definitely wrestles one of the harder d4 schedules. This is why Evan wins 160.
Riley parker looked tough all year. He wins D4 and will bring home a top three PIAA medal. Don’t sleep on Kaden Rodarmel, he is a dark horse taking third last week. Big Austin or Ulrich doesn’t break a sweat. Both top three this year
No published school list. Visited Rutger last fall, am unaware of any other officials taken. Wisconsin visited him.
Most likely they'll wait to decide until the fall, so that younger brother Brandt gets some attention from college coaches.
PSU loaded at his weight range, was unlikely before we got Sealey.
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Pretty sure the majority of wrestling fans are happy with the current seeding system. It’s not perfect and never will be but it usually keeps the best guys separate till the Semis. Coaches etc would argue for days there has to be a formula. This one is solid. Best 2 guys are on opposite sides 95% of the time.
It's a good system but not a great one.
The obvious holes:
1. Freshman regional champs seeded artificially low due to no prestige points
2. No accounting for strength of schedule or quality wins
3. Past placers who missed the last postseason with injury (i.e., state champ Hunter Catka) get no prestige points, thus seeded incorrectly
Some will argue that the entire bracket should be seeded. IMO that's a bit much. Perhaps doable in AA with 4 regionals, less so in AAA with 5. Regional finalists being separated is a good thing, to me more important than seeding all 20 per weight.
BTW, regional finalist separation is no small part of getting the best 2 guys into the finals. The seeding methodology can't be given credit for that.
He recently took an unofficial to Rutgers, took some BV kids with him on the trip. My money is on Rutgers and he could move there early.
D10 AA at 189 looks like it’ll be insane again this week. In the north section last week the bracket went anything but chalk: Magnus Lloyd of General McLane beat the brakes off top seed Ryan Miller of Seneca in the semis to the tune of a 13-0 MD. Ethyn Allen of Corry knocked off an upstart Ryan Welka from FLB by fall in the semis. Allen then handed Lloyd a surprising 11-6 loss in the finals. The last set of rankings I saw had Lloyd ranked around #6 and Allen down around #19. Assuming those three make it out of districts unscathed, regions will be even more interesting when you add in returning state placers Seth Stewart from Brockway and Carter Chamberlain from Clearfield
I remember kids from pen argyle going to states with ten losses and kick the shit out of undefeated kids lol. Guess wrestling the best of district eleven warmed them up
Last year's AAA 113 runner-up (Cole Campbell, Beca) was 30-10 entering Hershey.
Showing my age, but when Joey Ecklof (Northampton) won his first state title, he had 10 loses going in. And he became a 3xer.
His 3rd title was legend. It was the only time (far as I know) that two 2x state champs met each other in the finals, as Ecklof faced up against Donnie Jones. My seat was about the 4th row from the mat. (Bought a ticket from an AA person who didn't want his AAA tickets.)
Ecklof vs Jones 2003
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Piaa states my opinion is ok seeding…. How about D11 dillard at 107 ranked #1 in state is 12-0 and the 13 seed not enough matches …. 114 Desmond #2 seed defending state champ ranked 3rd in country….. d11 may need to change there seeding.
Campbell was 3rd in his region. #2 in region got beat first round and he ended up 2nd…. sounds about right
Showing my age too - Joey’s first title was partly a result of him bumping up to 135. 130 was a meat grinder in D11 - I think Jay Morrison was a state finalist that year and Bryan Hart kind of owned Ecklof (he lost 3-2 to eventual champ Donnie Jones). That accounted for a bunch of Joey’a losses, as did Northamptons schedule (Beast, Hurricane, etc.). 135 was a little softer, both locally and statewide, and Ecklof went on a postseason run that never stopped.
Your seats must have been very close to mine for Ecklof-Jones - I was on the side right by the PA announcer, second row I think?
Sam Hillegas and Julian Chlebove also wrestled as 2x state champs a few years ago, but they met in semis, not finals, because Chlebove didn’t wrestle as a junior and didn’t have seeding points.
I think D11 has used the same seeding formula since Bob Zarbatany created it a million years ago. To their credit or detriment, it’s strictly numbers based so there’s no stumping in the room. It does lead to ridiculous outcomes when guys are hurt like Kasak, Crookham, and Dillard in the last few years.
Desmond falls below Wagner because of Wagners compiled finishes - I think he has three D11 finals and two titles, which all stack in the seeding system. That will come out in the wash, they’re the two top guys - just means Chris Kelly will lose to Desmond in semis instead of Wagner.
I also feel like it matters a little less because top 5 are moving on, so unless you’re Charlie Bunting from a few years ago, it comes out in the wash.
The last 2 paragraphs are key. Districts matters primarily for advancement to NE Regionals. At that point, the D11 champ will get a top 3 seed. Desmond will be the 1 seed at regionals. Dillard might be the 3 seed, but only because of lack of prestige points as a freshman.
With 5 advancing, the exact seeds at districts are a lot less important. You'd rather not be the 5th guy coming out, because you'll likely be slotted against the 1 seed at regionals ... but you still have a shot. And D11 is vastly superior to D2 and D12.
Get ready for this stat. There are 50 wrestlers going to the AAA NW Regionals with losing records.
Incredible
Incredible
That’s Wild and there is an 0-14 kid entered a 1-12 the win was a forfeit. Several not even close to 500. I would say they don’t need 14 qualifiers at NW Region.
SouthCentral AAA Region has 2 kids with losing records 19-21 and 11-12 records.
50 is a shocking number but qualitatively it makes sense for NW AAA to have more than others. It's not the strongest, AND some of its districts are over-allocated with qualifiers.
D8 has 5 schools, got 3 qualifiers. D4/9 has 8 schools, 5 qualifiers. Both had weights so undermanned that every entered wrestler qualified for regionals.
It'll have zero effect on states. NW AAA gets 3 qualifiers -- which is fewer than 4/9 gets out of districts.
I agree El Jefe. That’s kind what I meant Knock D8 down to 2 qualifiers and D4/9 back to 3 seems fair. Northwest Region high end guys will perform well in Hershey. They had the 2nd highest medal % of the 5 regions last year.
This isn't a huge deal and it wouldn't solve the whole "problem". But D8 shouldn't be in the NW. D8 schools should simply be absorbed into D7 sectionals or something.
Then perhaps the other four districts could have combined "district" tournaments with 4 qualifiers each. Geographically, D4/D6 and D9/D10 would make sense. Perhaps that would help a bit. I don't know.
The Wpial would shyt themselves. The reason district 8 is in NW region is because the WPIAL cried enough tears to fill the Ohio River that the addition of the D8 schools was ruining WPIAL traditions.
The NW needs to try and keep the D8 schools because the number of AAA district 4, 6, 9, and 10 is small enough the number of NW qualifiers could shrink to 2 without district 8's numbers.
Slight disagreement: regional qualifiers to states is not based upon # schools -- it's based upon # medalists in recent years. So I'm not sure losing D8 would affect NW qualifiers. But if I'm NW, I don't want to take that chance.
A thought experiment:
Same situation in the east: D12 (Pbilly) currently goes to NE Regionals for God knows what reason.
If D12 got moved to SE, would that change the regional allotment to states? (Unlikely.)
Also, would D12 qualify more wrestlers in SE? (Probably since no longer competing with D11. But maybe not since no longer competing with D2.)
It has been a couple decades since I was involved, and I take your word that medal counts now play a role in PIAA regional qualifiers. That wasn't the case 20 years ago. It used to be SW (WPIAL) got 4 (based on school numbers) and SE, SC, NE and NW got 3 each. The SE number of schools surpassed the SW and the SE got the 4. The SW cried again because their's was the higher quality region, and then all of a sudden the WPIAL wanted those D8 schools. The D8 schools by then had no desire to compete in the WPIAL.
Eventually they expanded past 16 spots and kind of addressed the bickering over that 4th qualifier.
If I had any say in D4, 6, 9 or 10 I would not let those D8 schools go anywhere.
That medal count involvement thingy did not pass the final vote. I believe it was tabled.
I don't think this is true. It was put forward by D7 the PIAA last spring and approved as their was some disagreement between the districts on the path moving forward, but then was repealed in the summer if I'm not mistaken.
What’s amazing is Chestnut Ridge. I grew up playing ridge right after the school was formed and they were god awful at everything. The district is so large area wise it’s amazing how they have progressed
I thought it was done when PIAA moved to 20 per bracket, and then last year was an attempted re-allocation effort that failed.
But I could be misremembering things.
Yeah u are not remembering correctly. The increase to the 20 man bracket had nothing to do with the amount of underclassmen medals for allocations.
Simple: place top 3 in every postseason tournament, and you're going to states.
Some sectionals, districts, and regionals get to advance more. But top 3 advance regardless.
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