Most wrestling coaches agree that the best way for high school athletes to improve quickly is to wrestle as many competitive matches as possible.
By competing, wrestlers can test what they’ve been taught in the practice room and be placed in different situations by their opponents, and how they respond can be a test of that growth.
It follows that coaches would like to give their wrestlers the greatest number of opportunities to improve as possible, while working within the framework of Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) guidelines.
The WIAA limits regular-season team outings for wrestlers to 16 and individual matches to 45. The outings limit has been in place for nearly 25 years, but the match limit was raised in the spring of 2014.
It is up to the individual coaches to decide how to structure their schedules to get those matches. They can wrestle dual matches (one team against another), double duals (four teams at a site, with two concurrent dual matches for each) or even triple duals (six teams at a site and three duals for each).
Teams also can attend individual tournaments on weekends, which simulate the modified double-elimination environment of Mat Classic, the annual state championships held each February in Tacoma.
There also has been an increasing prevalence of dual meet tournaments, where whole teams compete against each other over the course of a day (or two) to produce a winner.
Some coaches say the dual meet tournaments represent the best of both worlds, since they allow all 14 of their wrestlers to get multiple matches in an outing regardless if they win or lose.
“I have a very young team, and if we went to a lot of individual tournaments, most of my kids would lose two matches and sit around for most of the day,” said Stanwood coach Ray Mather, who came to Washington from Nebraska, where there are no match limits for high school wrestlers.
Some coaches say individual tournaments are geared toward the more elite athletes, and while the events do give those wrestlers a chance to compete against other standouts, their less-experienced teammates don’t get as much from it as they would a dual tournament.
“The reason we’re seeing coaches schedule more and more dual meets and dual tournaments is that it puts greater importance on the team, and that’s an emphasis straight from the coaches’ association,” said John Miller, the WIAA’s administrator for wrestling.
And at a time when turnout numbers for wrestling are lower than most coaches would consider ideal, keeping the kids you have engaged has taken on a greater sense of importance.
“Dual tournaments are better for the team because everyone gets to wrestle each match as long as there are no forfeits,” Snohomish coach Andy Aichele said. “And if a kid who would normally go two-and-out in a tournament wrestles well and doesn’t give up a pin, that helps the team.”
During the 2015-16 season, Wesco and Cascade Conference teams are scheduled for 26 double duals, a figure that is up from 24 in 2014-15 and from 16 in 2013-14.
Double duals are a bit divisive among coaches. Most appreciate the economy of getting two individual matches per wrestler with the event counting as one team outing, but some have misgivings about the value of double duals for spectators.
“We wrestled four double duals this year, but I’m not crazy about them because I don’t think people come out to watch a big scramble of teams,” Arlington coach Rick Iversen said. “Our team against your team — that’s what fills a gym.”
Most double duals wrestled in Snohomish County are contested in one gym, with two or even three mats side by side.
Sometimes basic game management issues present problems for spectators.
“Many gyms do not have the ability to display the team score on the big scoreboards for both duals, so the fans and sometimes the athletes do not know the team score as the match is going on,” Mariner coach Carl Wilkins said.
Even with the difference of opinion on the increase in double duals and dual tournaments, the WIAA has had preliminary discussions on adding a dual-meet state tournament to its postseason, a move local coaches support.
“It’s something I would like to see,” Sultan coach Garth MacDicken said. “I know the coaches association has talked about it, and I think the only thing holding us back is funding to send a whole team somewhere.”
MacDicken and other coaches enjoy the tension and competitiveness of dual meets, and how it takes a full team to win as opposed to a few stars.
“I think a dual state tournament would be awesome. It would really determine who has the best team,” Aichele said.
“The dual meet atmosphere still gives me goose bumps,” MacDicken said. “When they turn the lights out and just keep one big light on the match — it’s very intense.”
Miller said the primary obstacle in the path of a team tournament from the WIAA’s perspective is the logistics of whether it would take place before or after Mat Classic, how teams would qualify and how many teams would participate.
“There are some states that hold dual tournaments the day before the individual tournament, and some coaches choose to hold their best wrestlers out of the team tournament,” Miller said. “We’re working with the coaches to figure out how many teams would be involved and how the qualifying process would work. There are a lot of questions to resolve, but it has been a topic of discussion.”
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