Tournament Concluded

1. Malo should would win 9 times out of 10, he was clearly the best wrestler at 197 all year. Can’t wait to see this kid dominate next year; this loss will probably only serve to make him WAY more determined (if that’s physically possible).

2. Glad to see that big mouth Rocky lose!!!
   Where’s MANTELLA(LOW),Best In D3,and all the other Big mouths now.
   Rocky the AARP is sending out your application.I don’t think it’s good for beer discounts though!
   I knew he would run out of gas during a tough tournament!
   Congrats to Evan Brown!

3. malo was not the best. he got beaten bad. i like the kid, and i was rooting for him, but he really got beaten bad, you cant really make a case for him being the best. i hope he wins it next year tho.
   and blueoyster, i didnt like how rocky talked a bunch of shit on here,and actually i didnt like him at all. but i actually started rooting for him during his match with brown. brown should have been stalled out of the tournament, he didnt take one offensive shot during the semis or finals. throwing legs in and clinging without working for anything is stalling. brown stalled for 6 of the 7 minutes he wrestled kehrli, and about the same vs mantella

4. Mantella was silenced in the finals and it was a thing of beauty. It was not stalling, it is called tact. Brown planned out the match perfectly and pulled out a huge victory.

5. Malo was definitely dominated. The match was never in question. My only real comment from an excellent tournament was that I thought Headlee from Waynesburg definitely deserved rookie coach of the year over Ilaria from Merchant Marine. While USMMA did get six guys to the tournament, none of them made it out of the first round and Waynesburg’s Garber even beat the number-five seed from USMMA at 141. Also, Merchant Marine was in MUCH better shape when Ilaria took it over, as compared to Headlee and his assistant coach John Yates taking over a team that had two dual wins in three years, and going 10-4 and receiving a national ranking this season. Congrats to the Jackets on a tremendously memorable turnaround in just a year, I hope they can keep it going next season.

6. im glad mantella was silenced, dont get me wrong. i just dont like browns cling and stall style. i wish vandy, or kerhli or owens silenced him instead. it was stalling, not tact, he didnt take an offensive shot in the semis or finals and on top he threw in legs and clung on

7. He threw in the legs and broke everyone down to their stomachs and pounded their heads into the mat. That is not clinging on to someone. And his lack of offense on his feet did not matter. He moved and faked and penetrated to his knees a few times…not stalling. And ramballs, it is tactful to choose top in the 2nd period of the national finals and ride the person out for two minutes. Rocky did not work hard enough on his feet or press the issue enough…bottom line.

8. Mantella didn’t do anything in the bottom position. He clammed up and didn’t really show an attempt to get out. His big first period points didn’t happen and then Brown was in too good of shape and had the perfect match strategy for the match. Winning a National title is winning a National title you would have done the same thing.

9. Great call naming Greg Ilaria Rookie Coach of the Year. He had big shoes to fill at the Merchant Marine Academy under very difficult circumstances. He handled it very well and made every wrestler at the Academy better.

10. Rookie Coach should have gone to Augsburgs Mark Matzek, look at his record this year! First time head coach wins national duels and places second at nationals! His team also scored 99.5 more team points than the guy that one!

11. Please, with the roster the coach from Augsburg had, all of us could have coached them in the top three. HE even had the hold head coach ON HIS STAFF. I am not downplaying their accomplishments as they did finish second, but any coach with eight or nine experienced DI transfers should do that well. HEadlee or Ilaria were definitely the two best candidates.

12. Where do we post out point totals for the Fantasy game?

13. I think the “Rookie Coach of the Year” to Ilaria was correct. If the Auggies would’ve won the title, I’d go with Matzek. The Auggies just didn’t have a good tourney (by their standards). Only two wrestlers out-performed their seeds (Massey and Witzel).

14. How about LaCrosse getting third when they come into the tourney ranked 11th? Malecek coulda easily won coach of the year I think. They went 0-2 at nat’l duals then turn it around with only one senior in the line up and get third over coe and del val… pretty impressive

15. I was rooting for Malo as well. He got crushed in the finals though. I think Massey is a hammer in D3. Massey has the skills to wrestle at the D1 level, maybe not All American D1, but he could have a good solid career in most D1 programs. Malo wrestled some D1, and probably could have had a decent career there too, but Massey is just better, too quick, too strong. I think it would be interesting to see what percentage of D3 all americans are washed out D1 wrestlers.

16. How about 125? what a whacky bracket… flodeen and rush dissapointed and oster looked really good up until the finals. But also their was some amazing wrestling going on and what year mcinlly from rochester. inst. he really suprised me and kist wrestled good… and rush didnt wrestle like the rush i was hoping to see but theirs always next year.

17. Mcinlly looked awesome. Just a mean SOB. Oster was too much though, too flexible, too funky. Oster has wrestled amazing all year.

18. congrats Gardella
    Dukes got em next year (prediction is 3X AA, 1X champ)

19. All this talk about Mid-West conferences all year and yet the Empire, an East coast conference had the highest percentage of All-Americans! Great job “Empire”! You’ve proven you were one of the toughest this year. Hopefully, we’ll get a few bids back!

    #1.Empire- 66.6%
    #2.Great Lakes- 65.3%
    #3.Wisconsin- 63.1%
    #4.Iowa-60.6%
    #5.MidWest- 53.3%
    #6.New England- 35.7%
    #7.Metro- 25%
    #8.Ohio- 18%
    #9.Centennial- 18%

20. The Empires did do very well!!!
    I think the slam called on Mcinally was bogus.

21. Flenzo, the empire did a great job. wrestled their butt off. but dont’ just bring them up and leave the other eastern conferences out. the others didn’t fair very good as normal.

22. Wrestling fan,I am from the Empire, so the other eastern conferences are competiton just like all the rest! The only difference was they were’nt talking smack all year like the mid-west. I guess my point is that there is some tough east coast wrestling going on and it will be a year before anyone can try to take that away from us!

23. I would like to add that the Empire was clearly the #1 conference acedemically as well. They had 5 schools in the top 15! Most Impressive! Conference of the year———————Empire Baby!

24. YAY one year they had the most all-americans then the next four conferences are with in 15% of them were all from the mid west. weird!! So don’t base it on one year. I think D3 should go to what D1 is doing and base it on the year at hand and not last years finish. I think it would be more fair.

25. Basing conclusions like this empire conference thing on percentages is somewhat ignorant….good job that they performed but don’t try to use a percentage as an argument without using the real numbers…..it makes you sound dumb…..that’s like saying 75 percent is awesome if you get 3 out of 4…it’s still only 3…..think of a new argument and get back to us “midwesterners”

26. You guys have been using the percentage argument all year and it is in fact one of the biggest means of how the committee determines who gets how many bids for future national tournaments. So who really sounds dumb here…? Get the facts toolbag! Thank you though! This really helps to show that you guys can win well but lose sore!

27. I think the percentage thing was mostly a response to the “you have more chances to get more all americans” argument. If the empire were allowed 33 wrestlers I doubt they could come up with 20 AA. They couldnt even come up with 15 guys that could AA. Look at the Iowa conference, if they had the same rules as the empire they would have had 13 AA, and that is only because of the terrible performances of Bonander and Djoumessi. The Empire did have a good performance but not the best, and the rest of the east coast still sucked as usual.

28. You’re saying the Iowa would have had 13 AA’s is only an assumption. Think about it, different opponents would have been thrown into the mix and match ups would have been different. I don’t know what your criteria is for “having the best performance”, but according to the one that is the common standard and is used in determining future bids, the Empire out performed all others. Moreover, they were clearly the best acedemic conference. Good luck next year though!

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