Jan. 8, 2007: Deseret Morning News

State's Best High School Wrestlers to Take the Mat
by Michael Black

It is time to determine the best of the best. With classifications separating wrestlers during the state meet and not all teams matching up at different tournaments throughout the year, the All-Star Wrestling Duals is the perfect event to see the state's top grapplers compete.

With a little tweaking from the format of the past couple years, fans have the opportunity to see even more great athletes. Abandoned is the small schools versus the large schools format with only 14 matches. This year, the 1A and 2A classifications have been combined into one team of 14 representatives, and 3A, 4A and 5A each will have their own squads.

"I think the genesis of this new four-team idea was to give more deserving wrestlers an opportunity," said Dr. John Webb in a press release. Webb heads the Utah All-Star Classic Selection and Organization Committee. "Utah has a lot of wrestling talent and we wanted to showcase a bit more of it. In the past years there hasn't been a lot of 1A wrestlers in the event and by creating four teams we can also reach out to a segment of the Utah wrestling community that has not been represented much in past All-Star Duals."

It is not a secret that the event was created not only to showcase the participants but to make money. The All-Stars is in existence to raise funds for amateur wrestling in Utah. It began as an effort to try to save the BYU wrestling team, but when that was scrapped, most of the proceeds now go to the UVSC wrestling program, the lone college level program in the state. The increased number of wrestlers could also bring in more fans.

"We didn't see an increase in crowd size in the 2006 event from the 2005 event," said Utah Amateur Wrestling Foundation President Cole Kelley. "In fact, the crowd size decreased last year from the years previous. It was time for a change in not only how the All-Star teams were selected but on how the event was presented. We want to keep the great things the event's organizers started in 2001 but change things up a little bit as well."

Another problem the All-Stars event ran into was the late hour at which it occasionally ended. To alleviate that problem, even with the increased number of matches from 14 to 28, this year will feature three mats of action going on simultaneously.

"This will streamline the event greatly," said Kelley, "and it will make it very exciting for the fans. Even in matches of elite wrestlers, sometimes the action may be lacking as far as the casual fan is concerned. So if the action in one match is lacking there will be two other matches the crowd can watch and get into."

There will not be a shortage of anticipated match-ups. Five of the 10 center-mat matches feature two defending state champions putting it on the line against each other — Nate Larsen and Zack Reynolds (112 pounds), Jake Salazar and John Herrera (145), Shay Warren and Aaron Butler (125), Mitch Sanderson and Wade Eldredge (171), and Sean Porter and Jason Chamberlain (140).

Sanderson and Eldredge are both two-time champions, but the match that has received the most attention and will conclude the night is between Chamberlain, a junior and two-time state champion from Springville, and Porter, a senior and three-time champ from Davis. The pair squared off earlier in the year in the finals of the Layton Invitational with Chamberlain coming out on top with a narrow 2-1 victory.

The All-Stars kicks off at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the McKay Events Center on the campus of UVSC.