Brandywine Athletic Director Vance Straggon, Rex Pomranka, the Bobcats’ wrestling coach, and a host of coaches and volunteers should be proud of what they accomplished Saturday.

The inaugural BCS Athletic Conference Wrestling Tournament ran as smoothly as one could expect.

And I can tell you from more than 30 years of experience, not all wrestling tournaments run as well as that one did.

Not only where there 10 teams competing at the varsity level, but Brandywine host the JV tournament at the same time.

Yet, from the moment I got there until the tournament wrapped up, I did not see a single flaw.

Wrestling tournaments as most of you know, are an all-day affair. Sometimes they can drag out and bog down forcing what should have been a relatively early day into an extremely long night.

But that was not the case Saturday.

With both the JV and varsity tournaments running at the same time, Brandywine was able to get everything wrapped up well before 6 p.m.

In my experience, that is nothing short of a miracle.

Another nice thing about Saturday is that with 10 teams, the league tournament actually meant somthing.

With the departure of teams from the former Lakeland Conference, that meaning had been lost.

Pomranka was pleased with the way things turned out, and with the addition of more teams next year, things are looking even better for the BCS.

“There was some good wrestling,” he said. “I was excited about this new conference because this is what I wanted. The Lakeland was getting weak and next year with the other schools coming in, this is going to be a tough tournament. Being the champion of the BCS is going to mean something.”

It was also nice to see each of our core schools get a champion on Saturday.

Congratulations to Brandywine’s Corbin Eckenburger, Buchanan’s Matt Strozewski and Cassopolis’ Tymari Brown.

So now with a tournament under its belt, the BCS can begin preparations for next year. I have faith that it will run just as smoothly.

 

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com