So we’re going to try to be more transparent this year.
Lots of folks want to SEE our picks — and either breathe a sigh of relief or laugh at them, your mileage may vary — but what we have not done too often is EXPOSE them after the fact.
This year, we’re going to try to do better with that.
So, here’s our “day after” review of 2A-District 2, where we’ll show you what went right, what went wrong, and what went sideways. You decide whether we know what we’re doing.
And let us know. Because we’re not always sure we know what we’re doing.
Here’s the brackets in case you want to refer back to them, and here’s our recap we wrote on Saturday.
Team
Predicted: 1. Lincoln. 2. Chiles. 3. Columbia. 4. Mosley. 5. Orange Park. 6. Middleburg. 7. Leon. 8. Gainesville.
Actual: 1. Lincoln. 2. Columbia. 3. Middleburg. 4. Mosley. 5. Chiles. 6. Orange Park. 7. Leon. 8. Gainesville.
It’s not quite as bad as it looks. On the prove-me-wrong standpoint, Middleburg has always done a pretty credible job of making Matmen look wrong over the years, but I think this year especially so, because we hadn’t really seen a performance that said this team is better than Mosley, this team is only a point behind Columbia, like Saturday’s performance showed from the Broncos as a group. I also am struggling to put my finger on Chiles. They were the district dual runners-up, gave Pace quite a charge in the dual region quarters, and Pace wound up going on to the first day of dual states. Somebody has to finish fifth, and this district has proven itself year after year in the region, but it’s still surprising.
Individual
Yeah, we got this
170: For THE MOST PART, we had this. We had the top three kids at this weight, and in the right order; we did miss at the fourth. Never bet against a Crowder. Good life lesson, kids.
Do we got this?
113: I gave myself a win with a similar outcome in the 1A-District 3 MDK (also see above), but this one had more of a miss on it. We had the top three kids correct, but our fourth wound up at 120, where the actual fourth we had notes on, but wasn’t sure they would qualify out.
120: Not big misses, here, either; we had the correct champ and the right school at the runnerup spot (although it was Bailey instead of Serrano. Was a tough choice for 3-4, which we had flip-flopped.
126: We did get three of the four that actually qualified out, along with the correct champion. We had Serrano reaching the final, but at 120, not at this weight. Mailhot had three wins over guys we had finishing ahead of him (and over higher seeds), so from the prove-me-wrong standpoint, he excelled.
145: We had the correct champion (picking a 3xer is a safe bet) and the correct third; our projected runnerup stayed at 138 and won there (would’ve been a heckuva finals match) and our fourth wound up fifth. Pretty big win for the actual fourth, pinning the projected 4th on the home mat.
182: Our champion was correct and we got three kids correctly qualifying out. The projected runnerup did not weigh in and we had the third and fourth flip-flopped. I should definitely have had more notes on Kovacs getting out, though, with 27 wins.
195: Had I known that Raggins would be at 195 and not 220, I might have had a better shot at 4-for-4 on this weight, but we had the right champion and right runnerup and our third and fourth projections wound up fourth and fifth.
285: I’m probably beating myself up here, because the Orange Park 285 has been mix-and-match all year long (at duals tournaments it was the usual order of business to have three different kids get starts, and I seem to remember one where four different kids did); I thought it would be one of two other kids and not the actual 3rd. We did have the correct champion and runnerup here.
Yeah, mistakes were made
106: And we are off and running with a flying start, as our projected runnerup took third (so still made it out), but we went Tally for our projected third and fourth, and two Clay young kids pushed their way in. Pimienta beat two kids seeded higher, so that’s the biggest surprise for me at this weight class.
132: The bookends of the qualifiers out for regions, we at least had qualifying, along with having the correct champion. But our projected runnerup and projected third did not weigh in on Saturday, and our projected fourth made the final.
138: Just a swing and a miss here. Our projected champ qualified out third, our projected runnerup and third did not weigh in and our fourth wound up wrestling our champ in the consi semis, not for third. Have to give the actual runnerup, Lincoln’s Edwards, props for a big semifinal win.
152: All four of our projected picks did actually make it out, but not all of them went out at 152. Our projected runnerup was at 160, and our projected fourth qualified out second at 145, plus our order was off even with the kids who were in the right weight.
160: Our projected champ at this weight went ahead and won, but at 152, so that’s good on us to recognize, with the projected runnerup going on to win here. I wasn’t sure if the actual third was going to start, but not only did he overperform my expectation, but also his seed, and our third took fourth.
220: We got three of the four qualifiers to qualify out, with the correct champion. That was the good part. We had Raggins at this weight and the actual third here at 195, so that may have worked out better for both as both made it out. Definitely props to Rajotte for reaching the final after we had him projected for fourth.
North Florida Matmen 