State Tourney Time
First of all I don’t pretend to know very much about HS wrestling, especially outside of class A and B. So I won’t be doing any individual predictions for the wrestling state championships. But there are a couple things that I do know:
-Omaha Skutt is good. Really good. They qualified all 14 of their wrestlers. (one in each weight class) They are probably the best team in the state regardless of class. Look for them to win in Class B.
-Creighton Prep ain’t to shabby either. Prep is sending 13 wrestlers to state. All but the 189 lbs weight class qualified for the state tourney. Prep has been a long standing power in class A wrestling and that shouldn’t change this year.
-One guy to watch is Papillion La-Vista’s Matt Vacanti at 140 lbs. A 3 time state winner, he will try and become only the 13th wrestler in Nebraska state high school tournament history to win 4 state titles.
Other than that the big news about the state tourney is the location. For the first time in a very long time, the wrestling won’t be in the capitol city. TheQwest center won the rights to hold the event a couple of years ago and it was a very controversial decision. Partly why the Qwest Center won it because Devaney had become to small and somewhat unsafe for wrestlers. More parking and more seating were also other reasons given. I can’t say that I’ve ever been to a state wrestling meet but I’ve heard many many times that it was a special atmosphere. But the real controversy just came up a couple of days ago. Alcohol will be served in the private box suites in theQwest center. Think about it. Alcohol at a HS event. Now the NSAA has come out and said that by allowing alcohol in the building during the event could severely lower it’s appeal as a HS event site. I for one agree. It should not be present and the Qwest is fooling themselves if they think they can get away with this. Jim Tenipor, director of the NSAA also agrees. “If the association had known about the alcohol issue, the event probably would not have been moved to Omaha, Tenopir said.” I suspect that they will see how much money this weekend makes them and once pressured by the NSAA, they will back off and get rid of the alcohol.
So there you have it. Wrestling starts tomorrow. More seating, parking, space and booze. Basketball is just starting sub-district play and districts will be soon right after that. And then march madness baby.
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