The MIAA Wrestling Committee met Thursday and one of the orders of business was cementing the venues for the postseason tournaments.
The postseason schedule is as follows starting with the sectional tournament on Saturday, Feb. 15.
The four Division 1 sectional tournaments will be held at St. John’s Prep (North), Xaverian (South), Malden (Central/Metro) and Franklin (Central/West). In Div. 2, the host schools are Woburn (North), Stoughton (South), Bellingham (Central) and Algonquin (West).
Three of the four sites have been finalized for the Div. 3 sectionals and they are Gloucester (North), Wayland (Central) and Mt. Greylock (West). The south venue has not been determined though there is a preliminary hope that Cohasset will become available that day.
The three state tournaments will be contested on the weekend of Feb. 21-22. The Div. 1 states will be at North Andover, the Div. 2 at Salem and the Div. 3 at Foxboro. The All-States will be at Methuen High School on Feb. 28-March 1, with the New Englands running March 8-9 at the Providence Career and Technical Academy with a Saturday/Sunday format.
In other topics of pertinence, MIAA assistant director/wrestling liasion Phil Napolitano asked the committee members to stress to their districts the importance of entering results into FloArena as soon as possible. The quicker schools comply, the easier it will be to seed tournaments properly and efficiently.
Napolitano also clarified once again the status of female wrestlers when it comes to the postseason. Female wrestlers who qualify are permitted to compete in the mixed gender sectional tournament. If they are eliminated at the sectionals, they can compete in the girls’ divisional state tournament the following weekend, if registered by the tournament entry deadline.
If a female wrestler qualifies for the mixed gender divisional state tournament and wishes to compete in that tournament, they automatically qualify for the girls’ All-State tournament. However, if they do not wish to compete in the mixed gender divisional tournament, they can compete in the girls’ divisional tournament but will only advance to girls’ All-States if they qualify.
At the All-State tournament, there is a limit of three coaches which was allowed to coach from the corner. The MIAA will provide lanyards for the coaches and they must keep them for the duration of the postseason.