|
I received a short e-mail from Dassel-Cokato head coach Bryan Clemen last week, which cleared up a few questions I had concerning how the All-Wright County Conference wrestling team was decided.
Although he didn’t say it, I think his e-mail was most likely in response to something I said in my column last week.
At the end of the segment in which I was talking about the wrestling team, I stated that I thought Charger 189-pounder Dakota Hanson may have been overlooked in the voting.
Hanson was given All-WCC honorable mention, but because of his bid in the state tournament, I suggested that he may have been worthy of making the 28-man All-WCC roster.
First of all, I want to make it clear that in no way did I mean to insult any of the WCC coaches who vote on the All-WCC team, and I have great respect for them.
I was merely giving my humble opinion, which I admit may have had a little DC bias in it.
In Clemen’s e-mail, he kindly clarifies how the All-WCC team is chosen:
The WCC awards 28 all-conference wrestlers determined by record. These awards were determined at a meeting which was held on Feb 18th, (before both team and individual section tournaments) and state entrants and or state placing has no bearing on whether a wrestler is All-Conference in the WCC.
All wrestlers who had an 8-0 record in conference matches are automatically AC.
Once those are awarded, the next criteria is wrestlers with a conference record of 7-1 or 7-0. It then goes 6-0, and 6-1, and 6-2, and so on and so forth until all 28 AC selections are filled.
If there are more wrestlers in a category than spots left for All-Conference, then the coaches vote. This is how AC is determined for wrestling, which is different than other sports.
So, after I received this clarification, I did a little more research and discovered that Hanson had a 6-2 record in the WCC.
His two losses were given to him by Delano’s Eric Dahl, and Litchfield’s Kody Kalkbrenner. Sure enough, those were the two 189-pounders that made the all-conference team.
So, I will have to admit that the coaches got it right – no surprise there.
I thank coach Clemen for his clarification, even if I have to eat a little crow.
However, I am standing by my other statement that Hanson should earn all-conference honors the next two seasons if he continues to wrestle, and improve, as he has been.
I don’t care if my bias shows a little.
ED eye examination
I hope you all enjoyed the free eye exam I printed in last week’s paper. It came in the form of season statistics for the
DC girls’ and boys’ basketball teams, and if you passed, you must have super-human sight.
I had no idea they would be so difficult to read until I picked up a paper myself and couldn’t read them.
So, I have printed those stats again this week, larger than before, and hopefully easier to read.
I apologize to anybody whose eyes fell out of their head trying to read the tiny print.
|
