Month: October 2016

We are down to five schedules needed on the Northeast side, as Stanton has pushed through our 41st schedule, with a week still to go even before practice begins.

There are no new events on the 2016-17 calendar for the Blue Devils, which are opening the season with a bigger roster than they ever were able to keep together in the previous season, so that’s already a positive sign.

Stanton will return to Terry Parker’s IBT event on the first weekend of the season — its only regular-season IBT event other than conference — with the Optimist Invitational on December 2 and 3. The copy of the schedule I saw had the Blue Devils in Lee’s Backyard Bash, like last year, but their copy also had December 9-10 as the dates. I believe Lee moved that back to the third weekend of December, the 16th and 17th, which is open on Stanton’s calendar. In January, the Blue Devils will start back up with the two-day Army Duals tournament at Terry Parker on the 13th and 14th, followed by Gateway at Sandalwood on the 20th and 21st, then the Parker Duals again at Parker on the 27th and 28th.

Midweek duals have Stanton traveling to Raines on December 7 for what is at least a three-team event with the Vikings and FSDB, participation in Raines’ quad with Robert E. Lee and Baker County along with the Vikings on February 1, and then a dual with Englewood on February 8; however, my schedule had Englewood at Mandarin on that night. We’ll sort that out later.

So there’s 41. Which of our remaining five will be 42??

Just six more left to go.

As it turned out, I actually had all of Raines’ dates on the master schedule already, due to previous entrants coming in, but it is always nice to get email from Brian Gilbert. Considering how close the program was to not being a program in my first year of the website, plus the value I see him having in his kids’ lives, is critically important for the wrestling community as a whole.

To business. Raines will be in three new tournaments this year, starting right off the bat on the weekend of Week 1 with the Seminole Wrestling Classic in Tallahassee, hosted by Florida High. The Vikings will also be at the Yulee Duals, which they have down as a two-day event (my understanding as of right now is that it’s a one-day, on the Saturday of Week 3 in December), and they’ll be at the high-powered 1A Dual Championships, hosted by Clay on January 13-14, where some of the state’s elite small schools will meet.

A Tallahassee trip will kick off Raines’ list of events to which they return, starting with the Capital City Classic on the second weekend of December, and the Vikings will also make the long drive to Pembroke Pines for the 1A Somerset Scuffle on the first weekend of January. They’ll take part in the Gateway Conference meet at Sandalwood on January 20-21, and host the 5 Star IBT on the final weekend (will they have their announcer? We shall see). In February, the Vikings will compete in the Green Cove Rotary at Clay, and will host 1A-District 3 (hopefully, they’ll enlist the Kellums for announcing duties, the announcer has three districts to hit since everybody likes Saturday).

Midweek duals will include a home event on December 7 with FSDB (could be a quad meet there), a home dual with Wolfson on December 14, road trips in January to Bishop Snyder on the 17th and to Starke County with Bradford (a schedule I still need) on January 23, and a triangular with Robert E. Lee and Baker County on February 1. Finally, the Vikings’ regular season will come to a close on February 8 with a trip to FSDB’s five-team event.

There’s 40 in the fold…who’s NEXT??

For more schedules (side note — former Fernandina Beach coach Mike Emanuel is returning to the Pirates as HC), just need seven more at this point…we do have district dates and start times for all eight districts within the coverage area (weigh-in times for some of them). With four districts being contested on Saturday and two on Friday in Tallahassee, I have at best an outside shot at making the very end of Matanzas for 2A-4 on the Wednesday and then will have to stay in town on the Saturday.

Getting close to all schedules in hand. Once they’re all done, they’ll be uploaded on the Orlando Sentinel’s wrestling page as well.Brant Parsons and I are going have much the same content when it comes to results, both within our own coverage areas as well as statewide; he’ll have his stories and we’ll have ours. Between us, we should have a lot of stuff for you to look at this year.

We have 39 Northeast-side schedules now, with just seven still out and 12 days to first practice. West Nassau’s list has been sent in, the second of our three Nassau County-area teams in the field.

The Warriors will have just one new event on their calendar, an event that hasn’t existed in the prior three years, that being the Yulee Duals on December 17.

Otherwise, West Nassau will make several returns to previous events on their calendar, starting with two trips to Bishop Snyder on the first two weekends of the season, with North Florida Duals on the Saturday of Week 1 and the two-day Westside Kiwanis IBT for the weekend of Week 2. The Warriors will go back to Yulee for County on December 20, and again on January 7 for the Hornets’ Battle of the Border event, which is moving up a couple of weeks on the calendar. They’ll be at Terry Parker for Army Duals for the second weekend of January, at Raines for 5 Star on that month’s final weekend, and will close out the regular season at Clay’s Green Cove Rotary on February 3-4.

Midweek duals on the Warrior calendar include a triangular against Baker County and FSDB (WNHS lists this as December 13, I have previously seen this as the 14th), out in Glen St. Mary, and a second trip to Baker for a dual on January 19.

There’s 39. Who wants to be 40??

The last of the Northeast teams that came in yesterday came in around 6:15 or so on Monday night, when I was full on being a fool at home. We’re past that, though, and Paxon’s schedule and post is the last of the ones on this side that came into my email. We finish the day with 38 Northeast (& 15 Northwest) schedules in hand, needing eight NE and 11 NW ones, with 13 days left until practice starts.

The Golden Eagles have several events to which they’re returning this year — no new invites based on the schedule I have, at least not yet.

They’ll open with a trip to Terry Parker for the Braves’ two-day Optimist Invitational IBT event on December 2-3, and will return to Lee’s Backyard Bash — which last year became a two-day roundrobin but could change format this year — on December 16 and 17. In January, the Golden Eagles will go back to Terry Parker for the Braves’ Army Duals on January 13-14, then compete in back-to-back IBTs — Gateway Conference at Sandalwood on January 20-21 and Raines’ 5 Star on January 27-28 — to close out its regular-season tournament schedule.

Paxon has two midweek duals in February scheduled, with a trip to Ed White on February 1 and (on its schedule at least) a second home date against Lee on February 8 (Lee’s schedule had it hosting, with Clay also coming in). We’ll get that sorted out.

So there we are, 38 schedules in hand. Eight to go. All eight coaches were emailed Monday. Which one of them will be NEXT??

About this time 24 hours ago, I was sent FSDB’s schedule by Coach Homewood. That email put us in the single-digit category for Northeast schedules needed, as the Dragons make it 37 out of 46.

The Dragons have two larger events to which they are returning in 2016-17, both at Terry Parker. They’ll open the season with their only regular-season IBT tournament, the Optimist Invitational, there on December 2-3, and will come back to the Braves’ gym in January for their Army Duals two-day dual tournament on January 13-14.

FSDB tends to favor larger midweek dual events to make up most of its regular-season schedule, and this season is no exception. The Dragons will travel to Raines for a quad on December 7 (I don’t have the other two teams just yet) and will road-trip to Baker County for a triangular on December 14 with the host Wildcats along with West Nassau. To close out 2016, FSDB will host First Coast, Wolfson and Pedro Menendez in a quadrangular meet on December 21.

In January, the Dragons will take part in Bradford’s quadrangular on the 10th, with Yulee and Interlachen joining in, and will head to Interlachen on the 18th for a triangular with the Rams and Tornadoes. Finally, FSDB will host, on its Senior Night, a five-team round-robin with Raines, Wolfson, Terry Parker and University Christian.

Still one more to go yet from yesterday’s submissions…

We picked up Pedro Menendez’s schedule yesterday afternoon, and the Falcons put the total of pieces of the master schedule at 36 out of 46, with two more Northeast teams in hand. We only need eight more at this point.

The Falcons have new events kicking off the first two weekends of December, with an appearance at the Matanzas Duals on the first Saturday of the month, and another new event (though not a new venue) in play for the second weekend of December, when they’ll be part of the Westside Kiwanis IBT tournament, hosted by Bishop Snyder. Another new event for Menendez will be the Rob Bierbaum Invitational, hosted by Episcopal on the first weekend of January, where they’ll get a look at their 1A-District 4 rivals.

The remaining larger events on the Falcon schedule are events to which Menendez is returning, starting with, in December, the Backyard Bash at Lee on the 16th and 17th and, in January, Terry Parker’s Army Duals on the second weekend (13-14). They will also go back to the St Johns River Conference roundrobin dual tournament hosted by Matanzas on the third weekend of the month and to Palm Coast for the Flagler Rotary in its final weekend.

As for midweek duals, Menendez will be at crosstown and district rival FSDB on December 21st for the Dragons’ quad meet, and have what they call a “maybe” dual on January 12th at Flagler Palm Coast (the dual would allow teams at both Flagler Duals and Army Duals to claim an extra weight allowance), with a dual at Ponte Vedra on February 1, at crosstown rival St. Augustine in a triangular with Nease on February 2, and the Falcons’ lone home matchup against the Yellow Jackets on February 8.

36…the other two coming later…still have SIX to write up across both sites.

The Hurricanes are up next to come in, bringing the overall total to 35 schedules out of 46.

Gainesville will begin the year with a new event of its own, hosting the Category V Duals at the Boys & Girls Club in town on Saturday, December 3. They’ll have another new event on their calendar on the second Saturday of the month, road-tripping to Hagerty for its duals invite on December 10. While it’s not a new event on their schedule compared to years past, going to Buchholz’s dual tournament on December 22 is new for the Hurricanes, at least compared to last year’s schedule. I’m still wondering about the West Port event in Ocala on the 18th, which is a midweek event but might be a dual tournament.

As far as returning events go, Gainesville will return to Chiles’ Timberwolf Duals round-robin tournament on December 17 and to Lincoln’s one-day IBT, the Trojan Invitational, on January 14. The Hurricanes are scheduled to host Cities, on a Saturday night this year (January 21), and will return to both the Green Cove Rotary, hosted by Clay on February 3-4, and to the Talbott Legion duals tournament, hosted by Villages.

Gainesville will kick off 2017 with a midweek dual at Columbia on December 3, and as mentioned above, may be in a midweek dual event at West Port High in Ocala, on the 18th.

We’ve got two today in the books, 35 overall, and more coming later…

Yesterday was a busy day on the email for us, but with a personal situation of my own making (and then later my own fixing) that needed to happen last night, I took the evening off from doing any site work. So, we start today with a sizable list of teams on which we’re going to post.

We start with the Clay Blue Devils, always a threat for a preseason #1 ranking and currently Florida’s strongest 1A public-school program. The Blue Devils came in as our 34th Northeast schedule and it is a bear of a schedule.

Perhaps the new event with biggest impact — in the long term, given the evolution of the Florida wrestling schedule toward one that will see state duals in January — will be one that Clay hosts in the middle of January 2017, the 1A Dual Meet Championships, which already has an exceptionally-solid field committed to it. The Blue Devils have also committed to attend Osceola’s Christmas Knockout Classic between Christmas and New Year’s, and will throw in against the other best teams in the state there. Finally, Clay may be the team to beat at the two-day Ridgeview Rumble in the third weekend of December, which from the field alone looks to provide solid action all weekend.

As for returning events, Clay will open the season with its now-traditional visit to Jensen Beach’s Battle at the Beach for the first weekend of December, and will begin January with a return to the Somerset 1A Scuffle in Pembroke Pines on 2017’s first full weekend. The Green Cove Rotary, which serves for many teams as the final event in the regular season (Clay’s as well) on the first weekend of February, boasts strong out-of-area talent as well as a sizable chunk of the Matmen coverage-area teams.

There are two midweek duals for the Blue Devils as well, and both are massive. Clay will host Flagler Palm Coast on January 19 and will travel to Fleming Island for #UncivilWar on January 25. Those two duals will likely determine, conclusively, the end-of-year #1 team in the area going into the post-season.

So that’s 34. We’re going to have more shortly. There are nine other teams to post on, for both sites, so keep checking back!

A quick note, particularly for those out in the Columbia/Suwannee Counties area, the Bulldogs team is hosting another fundraiser from 5-8 p.m. at Zaxby’s (6861 US Highway 129 in Live Oak). Go check it out!