Originally posted by TheWombat
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Additionally, I think it's been shown that the amount of SD wrestlers who are D1 level wrestlers is pretty small. The fact that we could really only identify four SD wrestlers in the past five years who are having success at other programs (and really only two, as two of those four are still HS seniors and haven't proven they are going to have any success at the college level yet), shows that the pool to recruit from in SD is small. Combine that with the fact that MN, IA, and other neighboring states produce many many more D1 level wrestlers, and I'd say that our focus - identifying the few in SD who can contribute, and recruiting heavily in neighboring states with more history of success - is right on point.
Just to close the conversation -
I do think Stribal could have been successful at SDSU and he would have been at a weight of need the past 5 years. However, our current heavyweight Blake Wolters, from just 35 minutes down the road from Brookings and much closer than Stribal's hometown, albeit across the MN border, defeated Stribal earlier this year.
Tyler Waterson has left the MN program from what I've gathered. And I'm not sure that he'd be a better option than either Clay Carlson at 141 (Clay's record against common opponents is much better, and Clay is a year younger) or Henry P or Hunter Marko at 149.
So I'm not sure that either of those two would be better options than the current Jackrabbits we have in their starting roles.
I would have loved to have Kellyn March select SDSU in order to see his NCAA career unfold in a JACKRABBIT singlet vs. a Bison. I'm confident the staff recruited him and he had the option to choose to stay in state. There may have been connections now at NDSU that made that choice more appealing for him or maybe he just liked NDSU or Fargo better - difficult to say.
Not sure if Voorhees was a focus of the current SDSU staff or not...when it all comes down to it, he chose to stay closer to home (although not in state) by choosing Wyoming.
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