Lone Star Duals College Preview:

By John Rizzuti

ITW has a 2000-word preview of the college division complete with write-ups on about half of the better-known teams. But let’s be honest. You’re not going to read it, and we don’t feel like doing another rewrite, more proofing and editing and all the other stuff that happens so that ITW can provide you with our usual hard-hitting, no holds barred, riveting, high-quality editorial.

So, we just hit the delete button. It’s gone. Vaporized about 12 hours worth of work. Just for YOU!

Here’s the reason: we want you to show up for the college action next week at The Hilton Arlington — Cliff Keen Athletic Lone Star Duals. To get you to do that, we must paint a word-picture compelling enough to convince you to get off the couch and hit the bricks.

Imagine for just a moment . . . . . like a 3-ring circus with a Ringmaster, all eyes will be riveted center stage on an innocent-looking, tightly-wound, human dynamo – a whirlwind of kinetic frenzy better know as “The Thrill.”

Mark this down. Circle it in red. Cancel the hookups. Forget about building a meth lab. Stop what you were thinking of doing and make the drive to the tony enclave of Grand Prairie and check out the young man who just might someday soon become the most exciting college wrestler in America.

(If, and I highlight, bold, and underscore the word, If.)

Saturday, January 7, 2006 will be historic. It is the return of homeboy and Lamar graduate Will “The Thrill” Rowe, wearing the prestigious crimson and cream of the University of Oklahoma. Personally, if Will can keep his focus and better handle certain aspects of his collegiate life, he has the potential, ability and desire to become the first Texan in more than forty years to stand on top of the podium as an NCAA national champion.

Right now there are more than 50 Texas kids wrestling in college. Out of all of them, “The Thrill” is the one with the best shot to be an NCAA kingpin. Right up there with him is, of course, Keegan Mueller, Clay Kehrer, Tervel Dlagnev and several others, but nobody electrifies the crowd like Thrillorama.

Who will forget the Border Brawl match with Oklahoma at Coppell High School when Will tormented an Okie state champion and by the third period the kid was puking his guts out. Will had that ever-present smile on his face and was barely breathing deep. How about his spectacular five-point buzzer-beater throw to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Newly McOldie McSpadden at Red River.

Or, the other Red River match the next year against another Oklahoma stud who made a bad mistake and trashed-talked and head-slapped Will in the first period. He then had hell to pay as Will worked him over like a junkyard dog (JYD).

What about the state meet in 2004 where Will scored 67 takedowns without giving up a single two-pointer? How about the classic match with Shane Vernon at the Oklahoma Open? Will had the match won but decided to push Vernon
as hard as he could until the final bell. Getting down by two heading into the final stanza, Will threw everything but the kitchen sink at Vernon only to fall short in one of the best matches ever.

Don’t ever kid yourself. The McSpadden’s and Vernon’s of the world are as good as any middleweight wrestlers in America. Toss in Michael Poeta who beat Will (on a cheesy two-point tilt) to win Senior Nationals after Thrill dropped him twice.

Will cracked the Sooner lineup and then there was Bedlam. Against 11th ranked OSU senior Kevin Ward, this red-shirted freshman flashed back to the days of yore. Down several points in the third period with the Stillwater crowd going nuts, Will went into high-gear. Before Ward knew what hit him, The Thrill had scored three takedowns to pull out an overtime, sudden victory. Ward had darned-near collapsed on the mat. Will did his best Pistol Pete six-shooter imitation and forever endeared himself to the Cowboy faithful.

This year’s Lone Star Duals (abbreviated “LSD” to save me typing at least one billion more words – groovy, baby) college division will host 21 teams with five of those squads being in the upper echelon of the current NWCA/USA Today national poll. Led by the number-three University of Oklahoma Sooners, The LSD college lineup will showcase a collection of great teams, wrestlers with NCAA championship potential and some hot dual meets.

If you have never watched college wrestling, let me tell you that it can be extraordinarily exciting. Speed. Power. Fury. Frenzy. And, that’s just the pandemonium over the hot cheerleaders!

Expectation for the 2006 version of LSD is climbing fast (and furious). (Attention single young women) Don’t forget the service academies Army & Navy will be in attendance. Powerhouse Oklahoma, with their best team since 2000, Wisconsin, Purdue, Tennessee – Chattanooga with new coach Joe Seay will be there as will Stanford anchored by hew head coach and two-time Olympian Kerry McCoy.

The big competitive differentiator between the two popular head-on meets this coming weekend is that the Grapevine Duals (another terrific event) doesn’t have the college division and Lone Star does. Historically, I would give the edge to Grapevine for fantastic quality and lineups the high school pools. But the gap has closed considerably this year.

With the possibility and probability of a national top-twenty shootout between 10th ranked and highly-heralded Bishop Lynch of Dallas ramming heads with Florida powerhouse and 20th ranked Oveido could potentially make Grand Prairie Texas a wrestling hot spot for Saturday, January 7. Much of the national media will be there as will InsideTexasWrestling.

The LSD website has a layout of all the Saturday January 7 matchups (www.lonestarduals.com)

Here are the current National Wrestling Coaches Association ranking as of Dec. 20 for duals teams:

Rank/Team/Record/Points/last week
1. Oklahoma State (12), 3-0-0, 480 pts., 1 last week
2. Minnesota, 7-0-0, 464 pts., 3 last week
3. Oklahoma , 1-1-1, 458 pts., 2 last week
4. Illinois , 1-0-0, 437 pts., 4 last week
5. Michigan, 2-1-0, 430 pts., 5 last week
6. Iowa, 3-0-0, 425 pts., 6 last week
7. Iowa State , 4-2-0, 409 pts., 7 last week
8. Cornell, 0-0-0, 397 pts., 8 last week
9. Lehigh, 5-2-1, 382 pts., 9 last week
10. Central Michigan, 3-2-0, 378 pts., 10 last week
11. Missouri, 3-0-0, 344 pts., 13 last week
12. Penn State, 5-2-0, 326 pts., 12 last week
13. Nebraska, 4-2-0, 325 pts.,11 last week
14. Northwestern, 3-0-0, 323 pts., 14 last week
15. Indiana, 5-0-0, 297 pts., 18 last week
16. Michigan State, 1-2-0, 290 pts., 16 last week
17. Wisconsin, 4-1-0, 289 pts., 15 last week
18. Edinboro, 4-0-0, 289 pts., 19 last week
19. Arizona State, 3-2-0, 275 pts., 17 last week
20. Cal Poly, 2-1-0, 270 pts., 23 last week
21. Hofstra, 2-1-1, 241 pts., 20 last week
22. Northern Illinois, 3-2-0, 235 pts., 21 last week
23. Northern Iowa , 2-3-0, 228 pts., 22 last week
24. Navy, 4-1-0, 209 pts., 24 last week
25. Penn, 1-1-0, 186 pts., 25 last week
Other Teams receiving votes (alphabetically): Army, North Carolina, Purdue, West Virginia

A bit of Lone Star History:
First, (you know me) let’s toss in a little controversy and stir. Rick Ortega of St Marks in Dallas has had a November dual meet tournament for about a million years called “The Lone Star Duals.”

To say that Rick was peeved when the Arlington people (headed up by the great Barry Boustead and his fabulous team of dedicated and talented volunteers) came in and named their meet the “Lone Star Duals” would be an understatement.

Rick is right. He had the name first. But there wasn’t and isn’t a trademark protecting the ownership (although there could have been) of the name, so it was open season. Rick’s solution was to call his meet “The Original Lone Star Duals.” Brilliant solution. Everybody wins. Case closed.

The first-ever college action at LSD went down in early 1998. Oklahoma head honcho and wrestling innovator Jack Spates was the man with the courage to step up to the plate and said, “hey we’ll do this.”

The first-ever major competition included Wisconsin, Virginia and Brown and happened at Lamar High School in the big A. The college boys had some additional wrestling from eight high schools and the meet became a reality. (Oklahoma, Brown and Wisconsin are in this year’s event and have been steady LSD competitors from day one.

The next year’s (1999) LSD meet organizers bumped up the number of participating teams to eight. And the size and quality of wrestling kept going up year-after-year.

If there is one event you attend this year, make it Lone Star Duals. It’s well worth the trip! Check out their website for the latest information:

www.lonestarduals.com