So, this preview is a bit short notice, but Lockport is wrestling in Kaukauna, Wisconsin at the Cheesehead Tournament on Friday, January 8, and Saturday, January 9, 2016.
First things first:
Click here to follow the tournament on TrackWrestling!
In an effort to save some space, if you're reading this before the tournament, you can still see the (tentative) draws for each weight class already! (Oster, Timmons, and Tucker have byes into the pool matches at the time of publication)
And if the tournament has already started, follow the action live! I'll also live-tweet results between photography at www.twitter.com/LTHSwrestling so you should follow that too.
How the Tournament Works - It's Unique!
Any wrestler who gets into the pools will be assigned into one of two different eight-man brackets. In each pool, the 1st and 2nd place wrestlers go into the top bracket, where wrestlers will wrestle for 1st through 8th places. Wrestlers who take 3rd or 4th in their pool enter into a separate 8 man bracket, for 9th through 16th places. All pigtail and pool matches take place Friday evening, while bracket matches take place on Saturday.
If a wrestler loses in the pigtail and does not make it into the pools, they enter into a 16-man bracket (which will have some byes), and will wrestle for 17th through whatever place there may be in the bracket, depending on the number of wrestlers. This tournament wrestles every single place out - there is no such thing as going 0-2 at the Cheesehead. If there is a full bracket (27 teams this year), by the end of the tournament, that bracket will have placed 1st through 27th places.
The Cheesehead is a rather unique tournament. It combines pigtails, pool matches, and traditional bracketing - but no double elimination in the tournament. Any wrestler seeded in the top eight gets a bye into the pool rounds, which consist of four pools of 4 wrestlers each, wrestled in a round-robin style.
National Rankings
InterMat/FloWrestling ranking, Name - Year, School (State)
106
#10/#10 , Joey Melendez - 10th, Montini Catholic (IL)
#16/#18 , Patrick McKee - 10th, St. Michael Albertville (MN)
113
#2/#2 , Real Woods - 10th, Montini Catholic (IL)
120
None
126
#7/#12 , Matt Schmitt - 12th, Platte County (MO)
132
#6/#3(126), Rudy Yates - 12th, Carl Sandburg (IL)
#8/#8, Dylan Duncan - 12th, Montini Catholic (IL)
138
#5/#5, Mitch McKee - 12th, St. Michael-Albertville (MN)
145
#3/#4, Austin O'Connor - 11th, St. Rita (IL)
#14/#15, Ethan Karsten - 12th, Platte County (MO)
152
#3/#3(160), Griffin Parriott - 12th, New Prague (MN)
#12/#20, Jake Allar - 12th, St. Michael-Albertville (MN)
#19/NR, Jake Tucker - 12th, Mt. Carmel (IL)
NR/#18, Trevell Timmons - 11th, Lockport (IL)
160
#4/#2, Brady Berge - 11th, Kasson-Mantorville (MN)
170
#1/1, Mark Hall - 12th, Apple Valley (MN)
182
#3/#3 , Beau Breske - 12th, Hartford Union (WI)
#9(160)/#15(170) , Lucas Jeske - 12th, St. Michael-Albertville (MN)
#18/#10, Patrick Brucki - 11th, Carl Sandburg (IL)
195
#16/#16 , Jacob Raschka - 11th, Pewaukee (WI)
220
#1/#1, Gable Stevenson - 10th, Apple Valley (MN)
#6/#9, Ethan Anderson - 12th, Southeast Polk (IA)
285
None
Teams (InterMat Rankings)
#7 Carl Sandburg (IL)
#14 Southeast Polk (IA)
#16 Apple Valley (MN)
#18 St. Michael-Albertville (MN)
#21 Mt. Carmel (IL)
#27 Montini Catholic (IL)
#33 Platte County (MO)
#39 Kasson-Mantorville (MN)