wvmat.com

as we all know, the WVSSAC doesn't have a middle school championship tourney. Most consider it to be the WSAZ tournament. But, i think a relatively easy "championship" to have in addition to the WSAZ would be to have a huge thursday, friday, saturday Duals Tournament on the last regular season week of the year. The only thing that would need to happen is to;

1. Find someone willing to host.
2. Get conferences to hold conference tourneys before the last week
3. Wrestle

Only problem i can see (and i haven't thought about it for more than 2 minutes) is would such a tournament be possible with the 5 match per day limit. Maybe that is what the WV Middle School Duals is supposed to be...im not sure. Only issue with this tournament is that it occurs before the last week of the regular season and some conference championships are taking place that weekend.

If you have it Thursday - Saturday other problems that would arise:

1. Students missing school Thursday and Friday
2. Travel expense (big one for middle schools)
3. County not permitting travel (another big on for middle schools) thanks to school boards

Then if you cannot get everyone involved, could you really call it a "true state tournament". High school doesn't have a problem like this because of the WVSAAC. I don't ever see a try middle school wrestling tournament ever happening. Even, you have other sports (football, basketball, etc) crying that they want a chance to have a state championship as well.

i see nothing wrong with a ms bball championship.

but, your other points are true

The WVSSAC is not the problem here, whether to have state championships in middle school is a decision of the WV Department of Education & is not likely to change anytime soon. The best you can probably hope for is an event that everyone knows is the state championship, you just can't call it that officially, like SAZ in wrestling, Doddridge County Invitational in cross country & the Harry Green Invitational in track. I don't see anything like that ever happening for football or basketball in middle school in WV. IMO we are lucky to have what we do in wrestling.

The new youth state tournament in Huntington has a middle school age division. The trophy you earn will clearly say West Virginia middle school state champion or 3rd or 6th, wherever that particular wrestler places. I'm thinking you guys are leaning more towards a team and individual (official) state tournament. I'm all for any tournament that makes a kid better or happy he competed. It's all about the kids fellas! Build it and they will come! Let's make it happen

I guess what I need to say is there will never be a state championsip run by the WVSSAC until the WV Department of Ed permits it to hold one.