Georgia State Duals Fan's Guide - 5A

Overall notes:

Remember this is a Fan’s Guide to the state dual tournament. For those of you that are less knowledgable regarding the specifics of duals vs. tournaments … duals are like other traditional sports where one team competes directly against another to accumulate the most points. Matchups at weight classes can play a huge role in the outcome and the ability of coaches to “move around” wrestlers to create favorable matchups can be critical to the outcome.

Order: Most of the time the dual begins at 106 and proceeds through the weight classes and concludes at heavyweight. That is not mandatory and the dual can start anywhere in the 14 weight classes … so if the dual starts at 145 it will proceed through the weight classes until it finishes at 138. As you can see in the example below … the 7A State Final began at 285 and then concluded at 220.

Scoring: An individual match is scored just like it always is … 2 points for a takedown, etc. The dual is scored the same way you may have seen throughout the season … but in case you were confused here is a brief idea of how it is done:

• A fall is worth 6 pts

• A technical fall (difference between individual wrestlers is 15 or more points) is worth 5 pts.

• A major decision (difference between individual wrestlers is 8 or more, but under the 15) is worth 4 points.

• A regular decision (basically a win without a fall, tech fall, or major), is worth 3 points.

• Teams can be deducted points for a variety of reasons, but I won’t get into that.

Below is an example from last year’s 7A State Finals between Camden County and Mountain View.

NOTE: Programs in Georgia, as a whole, do a fairly poor job of capturing results through Trackwrestling or FloArena. Not all programs do a poor job, but there are schools listed below where I could not find any results (duals or tournaments) from the 2019-2020 season. As a result some of the information below is incorrect. I think it is important to remind everyone the purpose of this “Fan’s Guide”. Many people will descend on Macon from across the state this Thursday and may not have any idea about the school they are wrestling or the other action that is going on around on the floor. This is simply a way to help your average fan have a better understanding of the teams and some of the individuals that are competing. Are there wrestlers missing from the information below that will be in the lineup? Yes. Are there wrestlers that will be competing at a weight rather than what is listed below? Absolutely yes. The “advantage” listed to the side is based on 2 things:

1. Whether a wrestler is a returning state champ, placer, or qualifier. Typically a wrestler that is a returning champ will have the “advantage” on a wrestler that is not a returning champ.

2. If I found results of one wrestler beating another during the season … that would get the wrestler that won an “advantage”. Was it close? Did someone get caught? It really doesn’t matter because this isn’t a prediction … again it is one person’s opinion based on limited information of who might have an advantage.

A “toss-up” is where neither is a returning qualifier and, as far as I can tell from online results, they haven’t wrestled. Is it possible I missed a result when putting this together? I’m sure I have. I don’t remember who beat who in the 2nd round of consolations at the Buford Takedown Invitational in early December. All of that to say … enjoy the fan’s guide. I plan to be on the floor Friday and Saturday taking pictures and updating this part of the website throughout the weekend.

Class 5A

Seeds:

1. Woodland, Cartersville

2. Veterans

3. Buford

4. Harris County

The top 4 teams in 5A are absolute hammers and could beat any team in the state … Woodland might be the best team in the state regardless of classification. That doesn’t mean that a team outside the top 4 doesn’t have a shot to pull the upset in the quarters … but it means that they would need to wrestle exceptionally well. There are teams that can make that happen, but if I were a betting man I wouldn’t take that wager. Keep in mind that Harris County probably sits as the 4th seed because they lost to Veterans just a week or so ago … but they are a very good team that has few, if any, holes in their lineup.

Top quarter of the bracket:

I don’t want to say that no one in this quarter has a shot to beat Woodland, but in all honesty … they don’t. Miller Grove probably has more wrestlers in their lineup, but that is all I could find online in doing the prep for this fan’s guide. It won’t matter though … Woodland is dominant throughout their lineup.

Whitewater vs. Walnut Grove is a very interesting match. I couldn’t find anyone at the upperweights for Walnut Grove and if that is the case then they might be doomed (giving up 18 points in forfeits is a recipe for a loss). That said - if they don’t give up 24 points at the end … this will be a very close dual with Walnut Grove and Whitewater being “favored” in the same # of matches and with 4 toss-ups from 106-170. I could not find any results for 2019 State Placer Sam Ponder of Walnut Grove … in the line-up? Could make a big difference.

2nd quarter of the bracket:

Super interesting quarter … especially the match between Ola and South Effingham. Harris County is the top dog in the quarter and should push past Riverwood with relative ease. The Ola vs. South Effingham match though could come down to some toss-up matches. Ola is favored down low, South Effingham should be favored in the last 3 weights. Jailynn Tindall is one of South Effingham’s best wrestlers … but he could matchup with Sam Harris (certainly Ola’s best wrestler and the 2019 NHSCA runner-up). Reese Jones vs. Jacob Galindez should be a great match at 106 as well … South Effingham wins those types of matches they will march on. Otherwise you will probably see Ola vs. Harris County in the quarters.

3rd quarter of the bracket:

Buford is the 3 seed and looks to be the team to beat in this quarter. Decatur doesn’t matchup well and Buford will cruise into the quarters and wait for Ware County or Carrollton. I haven’t seen Buford in action since mid-December at the Southern Slam and they were still missing Dimaggio, Williams, and Smith. If those 3 are in the lineup at 195, 220, and 285 this is going to be a tough team to beat (even for Veterans and Woodland).

Ware County vs. Carrollton might be the best 1st round matchup in 5A. Carrollton will rely on Parivechio, Sippola, and Bibbee to get big points … Ware County will counter with Frye, White, Thomas, and Hernandez. We could see White vs. Johnson and Hernandez vs. Sippola … those matchups with a toss-ups and we could see a dual that comes down to the wire.

Bottom quarter of the bracket:

I struggled to find lineups and results for both Southwest Dekalb and Starr’s Mill. Southwest Dekalb has 3 returning state qualifiers and all three are on their roster … McCray, Duckett, and Williams will be tough to beat, but with holes in other parts of the line-up - Union Grove should march on with little problem.

Veterans is the #2 seed and returns hammers throughout their lineup. I struggled to find the lineup and results for Starr’s Mill, but in this matchup it shouldn’t really matter. Starr’s Mill’s best wrestler - Ethan Kasler, a 2019 Placers, will matchup with Morrissey, Vorse, or Reynolds … and none of the three is going to be an easy match.