Status: Finis

Tournament Website	TrackWrestling Tournament Page

With a little more than one full day remaining before the first whistle blows at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, the 2014 Jazz Town Duals are coming together nicely.  Per the event's TrackWrestling page, 26 teams are participating, although only 24 indicate wrestlers have been officially entered.  The event is being held at the Xavier University Convocation Center.

A few notable changes have occurred in the last few weeks:

• Teams from the Panther Wrestling Club (Brusly), Gulf Shores, FL, Lee County, GA, De la Salle, 904 BOYZ, FL and Pace, FL are no longer listed on the event Website and are not listed on the TrackWrestling page;
• The B.R.A.W.L. team which is listed on the event Website is not listed on the TrackWrestling page;
• The Miami Elite and Klein Oak teams are listed on the TrackWrestling event Website but do not have any members listed yet;
• The Bulldog and St. Paul's teams have merged into the Northshore Wrestling Club;
• The Houston St. Thomas team has been replaced by the Paradigm Wrestling Club which consists of wrestlers from Houston St. Thomas, Houston Westside and Houston St. John's high schools.

It is unknown as to which pool the Paradigm team will participate in on Saturday.

A team listed as "Individual Entries" has at least some members from Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  [Editor's note: Ocean Springs, MS, is listed on the tournament's Website.]  It is not known if this group will compete as a team or if the members will be farmed out to other clubs.  If the teams with entrants listed on the TrackWrestling event Website are the ones that participate, Paridigm and Individual Entries may be added to pools A and B to give each five teams.  That number per pool assumes Klein Oak brings two teams.  It is feasible that if the Miami Elite team shows up that the Individual Entries members will be farmed out.

Brother Martin has a third squad (must be nice!) called the "Crusader Farm Outs."  It is probably a safe bet that those wrestlers will be farmed out to other teams as needed. 

What to look for in Saturday's pool competition

POOL A is comprised of Archer, GA, Dunedin, FL, Clear Springs, TX and New Orleans Wrestling Club B.

On paper Pool A should be dominated by Archer - the race will be to place second.

POOL B is comprised of Mater Dei A, IN, Live Oak, Crusader B, and Klein Oak A, TX.

Pool B looks to have some interesting matches at 120 lbs.  Mater Dei A's Will Egli placed 5th at the Indiana state championships.  Ben Wisniewski of the Crusader B team had a pretty good freshman year at 113 lbs. behind Mason Mauro, defeating opponents such as John Ehret's Prentice Spurlock, Thomas Jefferson's Logan Griffin, St. Paul's Steven VanZandt and even Jesuit's Division I runner-up Nick Charles.

What should really be interesting in this pool is the return of Denham Springs' Christopher Marson.  In the 2012-13 season Marson was undefeated up to the Louisiana Classic, at which he was the #1 seed, but suffered a season-ending shoulder injury that also kept him out of competition in the 2013-14 season.  This will be a good indicator of where he presently is re getting back into competitive wrestling shape.

POOL C is comprised of Crusader A, Back in Black, FL, Pittsburgh, KS, Westbank Wrestling Club and Klein Oak B, TX.

Pool C should have plenty of good matches:

At 106 lbs. is returning Division I state champions Steven Shields of Brother Martin and the Division III runner-up (and 2013 D3 champion) Logan Griffin of Thomas Jefferson.  Tanner Hitchcock of Pittsburgh, KS should also be watched.

At 113 lbs. Brother Martin's Seth Gambill or Steven Rumney should face a challenge from Blake Hartzog of the Back in Black, FL, team. 

At 120 lbs. is Brother Martin's two-time defending Division I state champion Mason Mauro, and Wisniewski may make an appearance in this pool also. Back in Black has the 2013 Trygg Memorial champion and Florida state runner-up William Pickren.  John Ehret's Joseph Davis-Lucas should also make this weight class interesting.

At 145 lbs. some local guys may get the first of several possible matches in the upcoming year as John Ehret's Jack Fontenot of the Westbank Wrestling Club and Brother Martin's Danny Evans are at that weight.

POOL D is comprised of Team Valley, IA, Harrison, OH, Northshore Wrestling Club, Mater Dei, IN B and Jefferson Wrestling Club.

113 lbs. is the weight class to watch again as Team Valley, IA, has state champion Josh Portillo.  Among his opponents is C.J. Brown of Harrison, OH, who was the Southwest Ohio Conference champion.

POOL E is comprised of Easton, PA, New Orleans Wrestling Club A, Oklahoma Rampage, Team Leonidas, TX and River Parishes Wrestling Club.

Pool E looks to be a toss-up between the Oklahoma Rampage and the host New Orleans Wresting Club A team.  Both teams are strong but most of their strengths lie in different weight classes, which may mean their dual meet might come down to the last match wrestled.

195 lbs. appears to be the weight class to watch as it includes Oklahoma's 3A fourth-place finisher Jackson Karshwer and Jesuit's Division I runner-up Guy Patron, Jr.

Wrestling starts on Saturday at 9 a.m. for round #1, with subsequent rounds starting at 10:30, 12:15, 2:00 and 4:00.  Sunday's competition starts at 9:15 and subsequent placement rounds follow at 11:00, 1:00, 3:00 and 5:00.

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