The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
OHSAA suspends state dual tournament
While the start of the high school wrestling season is still more than three months away, we already know the season will look a little different.
On Sept. 3, the OHSAA announced in an administrator’s update that it was suspending the OHSAA dual team wrestling tournament for the 202021 school year.
When Lake Catholic coach Scott Hivnor found out about the cancellation, he was on the golf course with some friends. After looking at texts and emails that confirmed the cancellation, he walked off the course to gather his thoughts and grapple with the thought of no state dual tournament.
“It was really hard to swallow at first,” he said. “This group of kids we have at Lake Catholic have set out with the goal to be dual state champions along with team state champions. I haven’t talked to the kids about it yet but I think this kind of stuff can be devastating. A lot of them have worked their whole lives to get to this point and reach these goals.”
Hivnor’s Cougars’ missed the state missed out one a berth to the state dual team tournament by one point in February. Additionally, the Cougars had eight wrestlers qualify for the Individual State Tournament before it was postponed, and subsequently canceled, in March due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Even with no dual tournament, Hivnor said the Cougars are still planning on following their normal schedule.
“It doesn’t really change anything with how the schedule is,” he said. “We kind of built our schedule
over the past couple years under the assumption that we could make it to the state tournament.
The dual team tournament, which is usually held a month before the full individual state tournament, features 24 teams divided up into three different divisions. If all 24 teams come with every weight class filled, that means there’d be more than 300 wrestlers inside Ohio State’s St. Johns arena. If all of those wrestlers were given four tickets to give out, then the stands could still end up being just as filled up as they would normally. OHSAA Director of Communications Tim Streid reportedly said the suspension
“I can tell you that, from the few coaches I’ve talked
to, that this is more of a budget concern than a safety concern,” Hivnor said. “There’s tournaments that are going on all over the country as we speak with no outbreaks. We’re going to go to Myrtle Beach here in a couple weeks for a tournament so I think it’s way too early for the OHSAA to be making these kinds of decisions.
The OHSAA has yet to set a date for the individual wrestling tournament, which is normally held around the same time as the other winter sports championships. The girls basketball state tournament is set for March 12-14, 2021 while the boys tournament is set for March 18-20, 2021. While the tournament cancellation creates
some uncomfortable questions for those in the high school wrestling community, Hivnor thinks that the modified, yet successful, start of the fall sports season is a reason for optimism.
“We’re just going to go under the assumption that we’re going to have as normal of a season as possible,” Hivnor said. “We’re going to have our guys doing strength training and their wrestling and just trying to be prepared for whatever kind of season it is. Fall sports happening are definitely a positive thing, so them closing down the state duals while positive things are happening makes it seem like they’re making a decision too quickly.”