Jan.
8, 2007:
Deseret Morning News
State's Best High School Wrestlers to
Take the Mat
by Michael Black
It is time to determine the best of the
best. With classifications separating wrestlers during the
state meet and not all teams matching up at different
tournaments throughout the year, the All-Star Wrestling
Duals is the perfect event to see the state's top
grapplers compete.
With a little tweaking from the format of
the past couple years, fans have the opportunity to see
even more great athletes. Abandoned is the small schools
versus the large schools format with only 14 matches. This
year, the 1A and 2A classifications have been combined
into one team of 14 representatives, and 3A, 4A and 5A
each will have their own squads.
"I think the genesis of this new four-team
idea was to give more deserving wrestlers an opportunity,"
said Dr. John Webb in a press release. Webb heads the Utah
All-Star Classic Selection and Organization Committee.
"Utah has a lot of wrestling talent and we wanted to
showcase a bit more of it. In the past years there hasn't
been a lot of 1A wrestlers in the event and by creating
four teams we can also reach out to a segment of the Utah
wrestling community that has not been represented much in
past All-Star Duals."
It is not a secret that the event was
created not only to showcase the participants but to make
money. The All-Stars is in existence to raise funds for
amateur wrestling in Utah. It began as an effort to try to
save the BYU wrestling team, but when that was scrapped,
most of the proceeds now go to the UVSC wrestling program,
the lone college level program in the state. The increased
number of wrestlers could also bring in more fans.
"We didn't see an increase in crowd size
in the 2006 event from the 2005 event," said Utah Amateur
Wrestling Foundation President Cole Kelley. "In fact, the
crowd size decreased last year from the years previous. It
was time for a change in not only how the All-Star teams
were selected but on how the event was presented. We want
to keep the great things the event's organizers started in
2001 but change things up a little bit as well."
Another problem the All-Stars event ran
into was the late hour at which it occasionally ended. To
alleviate that problem, even with the increased number of
matches from 14 to 28, this year will feature three mats
of action going on simultaneously.
"This will streamline the event greatly,"
said Kelley, "and it will make it very exciting for the
fans. Even in matches of elite wrestlers, sometimes the
action may be lacking as far as the casual fan is
concerned. So if the action in one match is lacking there
will be two other matches the crowd can watch and get
into."
There will not be a shortage of
anticipated match-ups. Five of the 10 center-mat matches
feature two defending state champions putting it on the
line against each other — Nate Larsen and Zack Reynolds
(112 pounds), Jake Salazar and John Herrera (145), Shay
Warren and Aaron Butler (125), Mitch Sanderson and Wade
Eldredge (171), and Sean Porter and Jason Chamberlain
(140).
Sanderson and Eldredge are both two-time
champions, but the match that has received the most
attention and will conclude the night is between
Chamberlain, a junior and two-time state champion from
Springville, and Porter, a senior and three-time champ
from Davis. The pair squared off earlier in the year in
the finals of the Layton Invitational with Chamberlain
coming out on top with a narrow 2-1 victory.
The All-Stars kicks off at 7 p.m. Tuesday
at the McKay Events Center on the campus of UVSC.
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