The Maine Principals’ Association is looking to strengthen the sport of wrestling in the state and it looks like they have come up with a plan to do just that.
The MPA has put forward a proposal to drop down from three classes to two for the 2015-16 wrestling season ”“ with Class C being eliminated all together.
Another change coming to Maine high school wrestling will be the use of team co-ops ”“ two or more schools cooperating to field a team. The team co-ops will take the place of the current individual cooperative designation that wrestling is under, which allows student-athletes from schools without wrestling to practice and compete out of another school’s wrestling room without actually being a part of that team.
“I think it’s a good thing,” said Biddeford coach Steve Vermette. “I think it will make things more competitive hopefully with the co-ops that are supposedly going to happen … it will make full teams instead of going into a meet and only wrestling six matches, and sometimes even less.”
Vermette is not sure how the new team co-op will work in Biddeford’s case as BHS currently works with Thornton Academy in letting individual wrestlers compete out of the Tigers’ room.
“I don’t know how that is going to affect us. We are two big schools, so I don’t know if they can actually wrestle for us,” said Vermette. “Supposedly if two schools combined have a greater student body than the biggest school in the state of Maine, then they can’t do it.”
Thornton Academy is the largest school in the state, which means the MPA would have to make an exception to allow TA and Biddeford to form a combined team.
“I know hockey (allows two big schools to do a co-op), so I’m not sure. I’m not sure of the fine print and I don’t know what the final ruling will be,” said Vermette.
Vermette would rather have Thornton wrestlers score team points for his squad instead of just wrestling as individuals.
“I would like to see that,” said Vermette.
Massabesic coach Rick DeRosier is happy with the move ”“ and is hoping it will get rid of some long bus rides that end with receiving a lot of forfeits.
“We’ve traveled and probably wrestled five (matches) and you kind of feel bad because you schedule it and go up there and there are (a lot of) forfeits,” said DeRosier.
DeRosier feels it will also give some of the wrestlers that were in Class C some better competition.
“When you go to regionals up north with Class C, there was only like three kids at 106 (pounds). The smaller schools don’t have a lot of kids,” said DeRosier.
The Mustangs coach is happy with how the MPA has tried to support the sport ”“ not only with this latest decision, but also with putting Maine back into the New England Interscholastic Wrestling Championships.
“I think they are going in the right direction with the MPA, saying we’re going to have the (New England) qualifier. I think in the next few years you’re going to see more kids getting into it because now they have a chance to go to New Englands,” said DeRosier.
This year’s New England Qualifier was a bit of a disappointment due to the fact that reportedly 40 wrestlers didn’t show up for the tournament.
DeRosier blames some of the no-shows on bad scheduling and communication.
“I think it was, overall, we had the coaches meeting and a lot of the coaches didn’t have that on the schedule. Next year it’s going to be on the schedule,” said DeRosier. “A lot of coaches didn’t have that on the schedule and kids thought wrestling was over, they thought their season was done. After this year, it’s going to be one everyone’s schedule so the kids will know this is not your last week, you’ve still got one more week.”
Vermette believes one way to make the New England Qualifier a can’t-miss event is to make it an actual state championship.
“I think it should be the Maine State Championship instead of the New England Qualifier. If you want to be a state champion, you need to go wrestle there,” said Vermette, who would like to get rid of Class A states and Class B states and just have one overall state tournament. “Have districts, then go to regionals and have like B region champions and the A region champions and then they will all wrestle for states.”
DeRosier likes Vermette’s idea and would fully support it.
“That would be nice,” said DeRosier. “It would actually help our season. We would actually wrestle toward New Englands instead of having a week off.”
The Massabesic coach also noted that Maine would be following in the footsteps of some of the bigger and stronger wrestling states.
“A lot of the other, bigger states, from South of us to the West of us, all do that ”“ they have sections, districts and regions (before states). I would love to see it like that,” said DeRosier.
For now, DeRosier is happy with the MPA’s latest proposal, which must be ratified at the annual Interscholastic Business Meeting on April 30 in Rockland.
“Overall, I like the idea and I actually think it’s going to help wrestling prosper,” said DeRosier.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 207-282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune sports department on Twitter @JournalTsports.
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