A few big names missing - Jeremy McCoy, Cameron Browne and Scott Bayer. Rick Henry is also not attending.

Wrestling schedule

Bennington to host All-Star Classic

Next Saturday's Nebraska Scholastic Wrestling Coaches Association All-Star Classic, set for 1 p.m. at Bennington High School, is expected to draw 21 wrestlers who were in the 2006 state finals.

The East-West dual is for 2006 seniors only.


East-119: Joel Torpy, Millard South; Anthony Bates, Wilber-Clatonia. 125: Jae Torpy, Millard South; Miles Negley, Lincoln Christian. 133: Matt Vacanti, Papillion-LV; Jay Sherer, Columbus. 141: Casey Gubbels, Randolph; Joel Koch, Thayer Central. 149: Ben Brandt, Columbus; Wade Granger, North Bend. 157: Steve Medina, Millard South; Kyle Svensen, Om. Skutt. 165: Chris Rotundo, Om. Bryan; Clint Steele, Om. Skutt. 174: Aaron Denson, Millard South; Anthony Luongo, Thayer Central. 184: Jake Hastings, Norfolk Catholic; Brian Zech, Auburn. 197: Josh Marcum, Om. Benson; Nick Schaefer, Om. Skutt. 215:Jake Smith, Bennington; Zach Johnson, Bellevue East. 275: Robert Worley, Waverly; Jared Schwede, Lincoln East. Coaches: Jim Kasik, Schuyler; Todd Porter, Bellevue East; Ted Glover, West Point-Beemer; Dennis Oliver, Pender.
West-119: Bryan Anderson, Minden; Shane Castillo, Kearney Catholic. 125: Holden Barry, Adams Central; Rob McMickell, Hastings SC. 133: Brett Hodgen, Hastings SC; Ryan Bartly, Aurora. 141: Devon Kastler, Ord; Alex Stewart, Lexington. 149: Tyler Sturgeon, Cozad. 157: John Cullin, Bellevue West. 165: Tycen Gavin, Sutherland; Cody Gillespie, Amherst. 174: Brett Mills, Grand Island NW; Kenny Michel, Om. Burke. 184: James Adelman, Madison; Zeb Graham, Valentine. 197: Brad Buerer, Harvard-Clay Center; James Thompson, Greeley-Wolbach. 215: Chris Tighe, Madison; Bronson Soucie, Cambridge. 275: Aaron Terry, Om. North; Eric Beckman, Aurora. Coaches; Matt Rogers, Kearney Catholic; Dan Lonowski, Adams Central.

Alexander,

I am not sure if your 1st comment means you are upset at those guys not being there or not.

If so, I would like to say that my son was invited to wrestle last year and had to decline because of personal reasons. The guys you mentioned might have had similar reasons.

It looks like a pretty impressive list none the less.

I do have one question - How do you decide who is East and West? example: Is there a school in Nebraska further east than Omaha North?(Aaron Terry on West squad?)

I believe in all four classes Districts one and two are on the East team and Districts three and four are on the West team. We used to have a Class A exception to this rule which put all of Omaha on the East and all of Lincoln plus some other Class A schools on the West. That exception has been lifted and since Class A is serpentined (sp?) (when there is not a far West school in Class A) then you could actually have North Platte on the East team.

when is this i would love to see vacanti vs. sherer

Superfan,
Jay and Matt are on the same team (the East Squad)

good luck jae and joel!

i may be there, i dont know if i will be in town.

There are a lot of good match-ups.

Is there anyway Gubbels and Vacanti could match-up? That would be the match of the day!

Or how about a round robin with Gubbels, Vacanti, Sherer and Koch?!?!?

Not a word on Omaha.com, anything in the print version?

Unofficial Results (In the order the matches were wrestled)

141: Alex Stewart(W) over Joey Koch(E), 4-3(2OT)
149: Tyler Sturgeon(W) over Wade Granger(E), 4-3
197: Nick Schaefer(E) over James Thompson(W), 14-5 Maj.
275: Aaron Terry(W) over Jared Schwede(E), 9-4
119: Shane Castillo(W) over Joel Torpy(E), 3-1
119: Anthony Bates(E) over Bryan Anderson(W), Fall
125: Rob McMickell(W) over Jae Torpy(E), 6-1
125: Miles Negley(E) over Holden Barry(W), 8-6
133: Matt Vacanti(E) over Brett Hodgen(W), Fall
133: Jay Sherer(E) over Ryan Bartley(W), 6-0
165: Tycen Gavin(W) over Clint Steele(E), 17-5 Maj.
165: Cody Gillespie(W) over Chris Rotundo(E), 6-5
174: Aaron Denson(E) over Brett Mills(W), Fall
174: Anthony Luongo(E) over Kenny Michel(W), 11-0 Maj.
184: James Adelman(W) over Brian Zech(E), 3-0
184: Jake Hastings(E) over Zeb Graham(W), Fall
197: Josh Marcum(E) over Brad Buerer(W), 11-5
215: Chris Tighe(W) over Zach Johnson(E), 5-4
141: Casey Gubbels(E) over Alex Stewart(W), 12-3 Maj.
149: Ben Brandt(E) over Tyler Sturgeon(W), 5-3
215: Nick Schaefer(E) over Bronson Soucie(W), 10-4
(Exhibition)157: Kyle Svendsen(E) over Stephen Medina(E), 5-2

East beats the West by a Score of 21-11, and leads the series 9-8 now! (both teams had won 8 times coming into the competition)

The OWH didn't cover the World Team Trials in Sioux City - even though two former Huskers made the World Team - why would they think about covering the All-Star meet when it's right in their own backyard?

I did see Shatel had a column on NU football today.

I don't miss that place a whole lot.

I emailed Stu expressing my disappointment in the OWH coverage. They were able to cover the North/South soccer game, but not the wrestling dual. I encourage everyone else to also email Stu a few words of disappointment. Keep it clean, poor choice of words will only place a bad image of our sport. Stu's email address is: stu.pospisil@owh.com

This new regime that is running the sports department at the OWH is very much anti-wrestling and contributed to my departure from there. I had to fight, scratch and claw to get any wrestling stories in the paper, even when Les Sigman and UNO kept winning national titles. When UNO and Dana won the National Duals, and Nebraska took third, they buried the story on page 3C.

They really dropped the ball on the state meet, putting a big Dana Altman feature on the cover on the final day of state wrestling and putting the state wrestling story on the bottom of the cover. That was one of the worst decisions I had ever seen in 17 years as a sportswriter.

I wonder if the 2010 NCAA wrestling meet at the Qwest Center will just have a couple paragraphs in the Sports Briefs. It will probably get trumped by a Creighton NIT game or something "important" like that. It's pretty sad, but the ignorance of some of these editors about wrestling is a trend at just about every newspaper in the country. The Des Moines Register didn't even cover the World Team Trials and they were in Iowa.

Right before I left the OWH, the executive editor looked me in the eye and told me they were going to hire somebody to cover wrestling after I left. But they instead hired a page designer.

I would contact Stu Pospisil (stu.pospisil@owh.com), executive editor Larry King (larry.king@owh.com) and/or sports editor Thad Livingston (thad.livingston@owh.com) if you want to express your concerns about the (lack of) coverage. I would try to keep it positive and convey to them that this sport needs some coverage.

Wrestling should not be taking a backseat to soccer, especially after wrestling filled up the Qwest Center for the last two days of the state tournament.

I saw the results in todays OWH, so those of you that did fire off an email, might want to send another to thank them for putting that in.

Do you suppose The World Herald is listening. There is a small, very small piece in todays paper!

Keep up the pressure!

I had a very good phone conversation today with Jeff Carney at the Omaha World Herald. Jeff is in charge of the Business and Sports sections. Jeff gave me his assurance that the OWH is committed to providing better coverage of wrestling, especially high school wrestling, in the future.

The reason soccer got coverage over wrestling has to do with soccer out marketing wrestling this past weekend. Obviously the OWH knew about the event because the NSWCA sent information to them and they put a short story in Monday’s edition. What soccer did different is following up with phone calls and sold their product.

They do not know what happened with the results sent in Saturday and why they did not get in Sunday’s paper. A suggestion was to follow up emailed or faxed results with a phone call to ensure they get them. The results were resent and they did get them in Tuesday’s edition.

Jeff’s suggestion to improve wrestling’s coverage in the future is to call and let them know of up coming events and stories. Obviously everything cannot get in because of their limited resources, but if they know about the events and we do a better job of marketing our product (wrestling) we can get better coverage.

I felt the conversation went well and I have a better understanding of what it will take to get better coverage for wrestling. The important thing is to get information and results to the OWH then follow up with phone calls to sell our product.

Badger,

I had the very same conversation with Jeff Carney yesterday. Jeff took the time out of his day to call and openly discuss the issues for over an hour. I am like you; I left the conversation with a very good feeling about the OWH and their commitment to cover wrestling.

We had the chance to discuss some of the “marketing" of the sport of wrestling and how the OWH was willing to assist. He and I were both in agreement that people sending rude unsigned e-mails do not assist him in providing/improving coverage of the sport we all love so much. Jeff also ask that someone from the AAU Grand Nationals Meet, the Nebraska Dual teams, Disney Dual team and the Fargo teams contact him with timely information on each event as well as the results.

I really did enjoy the conversation with Jeff and he requested anyone with concerns to please drop him a note with your name and phone and he would be happy to contact them. One area Jeff indicated he wanted to improve in the coming season was the coverage of the sport outside of the Metro area. Jeff named 5-6 tournaments that he felt did not receive his desired level of on-site coverage in the past. It was rewarding to have him name the tournaments by name and not just the towns they are held in.

Badger, shoot me an e-mail at craigsesker@yahoo.com when you get a chance.