Marysville’s Lincoln Heard has control over an opponent in this photo from earlier in the 2019-20 season. Heard is one of three local grapplers who will compete in the state tournament that is scheduled to be held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at The Ohio State University’s Schottenstein Center. (Journal-Tribune photo by Tim Miller)
The venue is the same, but the days of the week have been altered for the 83rd Ohio High School Athletic Association state wrestling tournament.
In years past, the three-day event has always been conducted on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the final week of the season.
The tournament has been held at The Ohio State University’s Schottenstein Center since 1998.
The Schottenstein Center will remain as the location for the tournament.
This year, however, the tournament will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this week.
“It was a scheduling conflict and an Ohio State issue,” said Marysville High School head coach Shawn Andrews.
It has to do, Andrews said, with parking spaces for Ohio State University employees.
People who work at Ohio State park their cars at the Schottenstein Center and then take a shuttle to whatever part of the campus they need to go, according to the MHS coach.
The Schottenstein lots rapidly fill up with wrestling patrons during the state tournament and make parking more difficult.
“From what I understand, Ohio State doesn’t feel it’s as much of an issue if the state tournament is held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” said Andrews. “They told the Ohio High School Athletic Association that if it wanted to use the Schottenstein Center for the state tournament, it has to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”
The floor of the Schottenstein Center can accommodate 10 mats for use in the state tournament.
It is the largest facility that can use enough mats to make the event a true double-elimination tournament.
The state tournament at one time was held at Wright State University’s Nutter Center.
“The floor at the Nutter Center can only accommodate eight mats,” said Andrews. “They weren’t able to have a true double-elimination tournament there because of the lack of mats.”
“The Schott is the only arena in Ohio that can have 10 mats down at the same time,” said Tim Stried, who is communications director for the OHSAA.
Andrews said the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association learned of the change last summer.
“It caught us by surprise,” he said. “We were upset by the fact that kids would be wrestling in the finals on a Sunday night and then maybe have a two or two-and-a-half hour drive to get back home.
“Wrestlers and coaches now won’t have Sunday to relax before they get back into their weekly schedule on Monday.”
Andrews said the change shouldn’t bother wrestlers as far as actual competition.
It’s the same amount of mat action, just during a different three-day schedule.
“The only real difference is you get four days to practice, instead of three when we began the state tournament on a Thursday,” said the Monarch coach. “It’s just a minimal disruption of the schedule.”
Although some people may be upset with a high school sporting event being conducted on a Sunday, there is precedence.
“Baseball and hockey have played tournament games on Sunday,” said Andrews.
The Jonathan Alder baseball team, for example, won the 2010 Division II state championship on a Sunday evening at Huntington Park in Columbus.
The state championship game was rained out the previous day that year.
Andrews said it’s likely the state tournament will maintain the Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule during the coming years.
“There have been other options explored,” he said. “However, there are not a plethora of 15,000 seat venues that are centrally located in the state of Ohio.
“The Schottenstein Center is the only one with enough space for the mats needed and a raised platform for the finals,” he said. “The OHSAA likes the Schottenstein Center.”
The Friday-through-Sunday issue doesn’t appear as though it will change in the near future, Andrews added.
Stried agreed.
“We go when they (Ohio State) tell us to go,” he said.