CINCINNATI — It would be great to have someone shovel your driveway for free.

On Thursday, a small group of teens who call themselves the “Winton Woods Weather Warriors” wrestled the elements to say thank you.

“This is just going to be a workout day,” said Winton Woods High School senior Pryde Geh. His classmate, Lonzi Murphy, agreed. “You gotta work hard if you want to get better.”

Both are members of the Winton Woods wrestling team. Their coach, Chris Willertz, said it’s about discipline and hard work. “They can burn some calories and make weight and do something for the community,” said Willertz.

Willertz explained the service project is directly about giving thanks. The Winton Woods City School District tried to pass a levy for years. Yet, election after election, they failed. This August, the district adopted a “pay to play” policy and the wrestling team had to fend for itself.

The team tried to earn money through a fundraiser by selling cookie dough. “We tried our best to sell the cookie dough, but we didn’t sell a lot,” explained Murphy. “We sold as much as we could.”

For most high school athletes, particularly those competing in fall sports, what looms ahead mostly is a diversion at this stage of the school year.

What Matt Lackey and Wes Hand are offering high school and upper-level middle-school wrestlers at Bettendorf’s wrestling room, however, is anything but a diversion.

With five all-American awards between them – Lackey a national champion from Moline and Illinois, and Hand at Iowa – the pair has so much wrestling street cred that they can command a great deal of attention.

And they are, every Sunday evening, at Bettendorf’s wrestling room from 5:30 to 7 p.m. offering clinics. There is no cost for the clinics, and the Q-C residents, Lackey and Hand, like it that way.

“As long as I have two cents to throw in and somebody to listen, I’ll do it,” said Lackey, who like Hand, doesn’t have future coaching aspirations. “I’m always going to be a part of wrestling. I’ll always be a coach. Obviously, Wes and I are not affiliated with anybody, so we’re able to teach and help kids out when coaching staffs can’t.”

The Manheim Central school board approved the hiring of former Penn State coach Troy Sunderland as its head wrestling coach during a school board meeting Tuesday night.

Sunderland, who resigned from Penn State on April 4, replaces Shane Mack, who had coached the Barons since 2005.

The coaching job will be Sunderland’s first at the high school level. Sunderland served as an assistant at Penn State and Navy before replacing John Fritz as the Nittany Lions’ head coach in 1999.

Sunderland, 38, led Penn State to an 8-12-2 record and 17th-place finish at the NCAA Championships during his final season at Penn State. Sunderland went 115-90-2 and coached 27 All-Americans in 11 years at Penn State.

Sunderland becomes the 15th head coach in Manheim Central history. The Barons, who compete in District 3, have recorded more than 700 dual meet wins since the school introduced the sport in 1926. The program has produced eight state champions and 13 PIAA runner-ups since 1943. The school also conducts one of the state’s top high school tournaments — the Manheim Holiday Tournament.

Sunderland’s wife, JoAnn, was hired as Manheim Central High School’s in-school suspension monitor, according to the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era.

By Tom Rinaldi
ESPN

“Leroy, touch your toes.”
Leroy reaches his arms out in front of him in mock effort, and says, “They’re at home.”
And then, the boys laugh.

He didn’t know they were gone.

Staring down at the sheets of his bed, the morphine starting to fade, Leroy Sutton was still numb, but he had a feeling something was wrong.

“It was when I tried to sit up,” Leroy said, remembering that day nearly eight years ago. “I pulled the covers up, and that’s when I figured everything out.”

It was Dec. 7, 2001, the day that shaped Leroy’s body, and his life.

He was 11 years old at the time, walking to school with his brother along the Wheeling and Lake Erie railroad tracks near his home in East Akron, Ohio. A freight train approached, and Leroy got too close. His backpack got caught on one of the passing cars, and he was pulled beneath the wheels.

“I didn’t even look down,” said Leroy, now 19, recalling the first moments afterward. “I was just staring at the sun the whole time. I wasn’t trying to look down because that’s when I would have panicked.”

Rationale for wrestling weight class options from the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee.

CURRENT:
-These current 14 weight classes have been in place since 1995.
-The 215-pound weight class was added in 2002.
-In 2006, the 275-pound weight class was increased to 285 pounds.
-These weight classes were developed from a survey that the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee administered in 1994-95.

OPTION A:
-The weights were created from looking at the hydrated body weight at the time of assessment of 195,000 wrestlers from the NWCA Optimal performance calculator.
-Each weight class was created to have approximately 7.14% of the wrestlers.
-Equal distribution of wrestlers in each weight class.
-Eliminates one of the first three weight class. Combines 103, 112 and 119 into two weight classes.

OPTION B:
-The weights were created from looking at the minimum wrestling weight (7% weight) at the time of assessment of 195,000 wrestlers from the NWCA Optimal Performance Calculator.
-Each weight class was created to have approximately 7.14% of the wrestlers.
-Equal distribution of wrestlers in each weight class.
-Adds an ‘additional’ weight class at the top.
-Creates a weight class in the low 180-pound range.

Penn State-bound twins cap junior careers with freestyle titles

by Guy Cipriano

Future Penn State wrestlers Andrew and Dylan Alton handled their last appearances in the Junior National Championships with the same demeanor they display everywhere else they compete.

They left the boasting to others. They didn’t drop any tears as they left the FargoDome for the final time as competitors.

“I’m sort of glad it’s the last time,” Dylan said Sunday afternoon. “I’m ready to move onto the next level.”

The Central Mountain duo will bring incredible resumes to Penn State in 2010.

Andrew and Dylan captured the 140 and 145 titles, respectively, during Saturday night’s freestyle finals in Fargo, N.D. The twins shared Outstanding Wrestler honors.

The Altons spent plenty of time atop the Fargo podium. They combined to win nine cadet and junior freestyle and Greco-Roman titles. The twins captured junior freestyle titles the past two years.

Most wrestling experts consider the tournament the nation’s premiere scholastic event. Dozens of college coaches, including Penn State’s Cael Sanderson, attended this year’s tournament, which started July 18.

Josh Lowe, InterMat High School Analyst

Heading into the 2009 Schoolboy Greco-Roman National Duals, one wondered whether it would again be a battle between Minnesota and Pennsylvania for the title. In each of the last two years, those squads met in the final. Minnesota won in 2008, while Pennsylvania prevailed in 2007 to win the back end of consecutive titles in this event.

However, New Jersey — not exactly a traditional Greco-Roman power — surprised the field with a 9-0 run through the championships. The Garden State squad was anchored by a pair of wrestlers that went 9-0 for the competition, Dylan Milonas (120) and Cory Damiana (190). Milnoas is raned 11th nationally in the recently released Junior High rankings by InterMat.

The run was not without challenges. In Pool A competition, defending champions Minnesota actually took 9 of the 17 matches from New Jersey. The difference in the 37-36 New Jersey victory was getting five victories by pin and technical fall, while Minnesota only mustered three. A pin by Damiana, technical fall by Jeffrey Miller (210), and pin by Gregory Webb (265) in the last three matches of that dual meet turned a 35-23 deficit into the one-point victory. Then, in the last match of championship pool competition, New Jersey needed a last match pin from Webb to knock off Wisconsin, 39-38.

Seven wrestlers from the Lexington Wrestling Club qualified for the National High School Coaches Association National Tournament with strong showings this weekend at a state qualifying tournament at Trinity High School.

Tyler Davis (103) and Keyonne Redfearn (heavyweight) won their weight classes in the high school division. Kabron Horton (171) placed second, and Ronal Canales (135) and Darel Martin Jr. (140) placed third in the high school division to qualify.

In the middle school division, Brandon Martin (112) was second, and Josh Rojas (145) finished third.

All of these wrestlers will compete in the national tournament in Salisbury, Md. from July 2-4.

By JOHN MILLEA, Star Tribune

LUVERNE, MINN. — Saturday was a big day for high school wrestling across Minnesota, as section tournaments determined the 672 individuals who will compete at this week’s state tournament.

For 671 of them, advancing to state is a major accomplishment. For one of them, it is history.

Elissa Reinsma, a pony-tailed 103-pound sophomore from Fulda/Murray County Central, became the first female qualifier in the 72-year history of the state tournament Saturday. She placed second in the Class 2A, Section 3 tournament at Luverne High School and will take a record of 32-8 to the state tournament, which begins Wednesday at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

She will join her brother Justin, a senior 130-pounder, in St. Paul. Justin, who has finished fifth in Class 2A twice, will compete at state for the fifth time.

Elissa said she has been dreaming about the state tournament for four years, beginning when she made her first trip to cheer for Justin in St. Paul.

“I went up to watch him and said, ‘That’s where I want to be,”’ she said Saturday.

By Andy Boogaard / The Fresno Bee

Steve and Adam Tirapelle, a father-son combination who directed Clovis High to the state wrestling championship last season, have been suspended from coaching for the remainder of the season by the Clovis Unified School District.

“The suspension was the result of findings after a multiple-month investigation following allegations of violations of district policies and coaches code of ethics,” district spokesperson Kelly Avants said.

She said the investigation was conducted by an outside firm.

Jim Crichlow, who oversees high school athletics in the Valley as commissioner of the California Interscholastic Federation Central Section, said he had no involvement in the discipline. And he said he hasn’t received an “official complaint” regarding the Tirapelles in his eight-year career as commissioner.

Avants said Steve Tirapelle, the program’s 12-year head coach, was informed of the suspension Thursday in the office of Clovis Principal Pam Winter. Also present was district Deputy Superintendent Dan Kaiser.

“According to their investigation, I committed several violations related to recruiting, which is absolutely false,” Steve Tirapelle said. “When I asked them to elaborate, they said they didn’t have to tell me.