After only one dual meet, we already have enough stats to start seeing the beginnings of some trends. This post will attempt to elucidate some of those early trends. Some cautions: a team trend does not translate directly into something an individual should work on. Individual matchups are much more important than statistical trends (e.g. going against a former Far East champ vs a fill-in-the-lineup-type brand new wrestler will affect the results much more than any lagging statistical indicator). Two final points: statistics don't win or lose matches, and there is always a counterexample for every rule. irst stat we'll look as is the takedown-to-exposure ratio. This shows how many times a wrestler exposes the back of their opponent for every takedown they score. A typical good example would be a takedown followed by an exposure (that doesn't lead to a pin) followed by another exposure (that end the match in a pin). A typical bad example would be a takedown that leads to no exposures. Using this stat we can determine if we need to work on turns - both scoring more (offense) and preventing better (defense). This is a great improvement over last season; we're scoring 1.7 exposures for every 2-point takedown we scored (vs 0.5 last year), and our opponents needs to take us down 2 times to get an exposure (allowed 0.6 last year). That 1.7 is likely an anomaly that will decrease over the course of the year, but it's good, very good, to have a better ratio of td:e scored than allowed. Now let's take a look at some potential developing weaknesses. 4-pt takedowns include throws and other takedowns that are rewarded for the disadvantageous position they create for the defender. 4-pt tds SCORED: 0, ALLOWED: 2 Last season's leaders in giving up pins were also the leaders in giving up 4-pt takedowns. A throw or dominant takedown is more likely to lead directly to a pin than any other method of scoring, and it isn't close. It can turn a nice lead on the scoreboard into a disappointing loss-by-pin. Let's keep an eye on this area; it may need attention. Asserting your will is a nebulous but often repeated key to success. One stat that support that axiom is takedowns (in matches we score 2 or more tds, we win 80% of the time, but if we allow 3 or more we lose at about the same rate). Another is offensiveness: every single wrestler (good/average/bad) had a higher success rate on offense than defense for the time I kept track of the stat. Another stat that shows dominance of the mat space is push-outs. If you are always in the middle and your opponent is always near the edge, they are splitting their attention between defending against you and defending against the boundary. 1-pt po SCORED: 0, ALLOWED: 1 This is so little data it may just be statistical noise, but it's something to watch for. When wrestlers are otherwise fairly evenly matched, if one is consistently forced to split their attention between their opponent and the boundary, that could mean the difference between a win and a loss. Points per minute: this is a new stat for me, so I'm not sure about a level yet (I'm hoping to be able to say, "If you score x ppm, you are x% likely to win, with a corollary level for defense). My working theory is that faster scoring leads to more wins, but let's wait for a little more data to come in before saying anything further on this point. The stat takes the points scored divided by the time wrestled. Therefore, even if you only score 4 points (td-2, e-2) on your way to a quick pin, you will have a high ppm (e.g. Dani only scored 4, but got the pin in 0:28, so his ppm is 8.6). ppm SCORED: 5.3, ALLOWED: 2.9 Ricky is the current leader at 9.7 points per minute, meaning that if a match could go the full six minutes, he'd be projected to score (9.7 x 6 =) 58 points. Obviously, that is not realistic, but I think this stat may have some value. Six wrestlers maintain a shutout after one match. That's not a status that anyone should expect to maintain over the season - even KPASS and Far East Outstanding Wrestler Rin was scored on last season - but it is fun to maintain while it lasts, and keeping a low ppm allowed is an obvious key to victory (you score a lot, allow only a little). JV Stats: The exhibition matches provided more data than the dual meet matches. Recognizing that there's sometimes a fuzzy line between varsity and JV, I've kept these stats to only the wrestlers who did not appear in a varsity match. Keep in mind that the JV Mustangs have only gone against varsity wrestlers in their exhibition matches. td:e ratio These ratios are very close, so there is not a big advantage or disadvantage to take away from this, other than that you can see how a crushing varsity dual meet victory was backed up by a significant advantage in the td:e ratio. 4-pt tds SCORED: 1, ALLOWED: 4 That puts us at 1:6 across all wrestlers and shows a distinct trend - we get thrown or give up big tds much more than we score them. Varsity went 1-1 (.500), and JV went 0-4 (.000) in matches where we allowed a 4-pt td. In all four of the JV matches, all else staying static, we would have won on points if we had not allowed the big move. 1-pt po SCORED: 5, ALLOWED: 4 Keep in mind that these numbers include ASIJ-ASIJ matches, so numbers from a few matches are double counted. That said, it's easy to see the difference between varsity and JV. The better wrestlers don't let the boundary line become a significant part of the match, whereas JV wrestlers do a lot more pushing (and getting pushed) around. Controlling your body and your position on the mat is a key skill. ppm SCORED: 4.2, ALLOWED: 6.2 Isak is the current JV leader at 4.7 ppm, and there were 2 shutouts scored. This doesn't look as good as the varsity numbers, but considering it was our JV against their varsity, it doesn't look that bad. Only 4 Mustangs are still fighting for their first points of the season (and career) and, based on their work in practice, you can figure that they'll come sooner rather than later. One other JV item of note: first year wrestler Shaun was tech'ed by an experienced varsity opponent in his first action ever in an exhibition match. The outcome is not particularly surprising; in fact, it's pretty much what you might expect. The interesting point, however, is that he didn't get pinned. If he had wrestled in the varsity spot and done the same, he would have saved 1 team point (compared to being pinned or giving up a forfeit at the weight class). Last season, that would have made the difference between ASIJ's actual 9-3 dual meet record and an even more incredible 10-2 record. It's also fun to remain in the never-been-pinned club along with some of the stars of the team. That's it for the very early stats review. While I project Yokota to be fighting for 3rd in the conference and be in the running for a D-II Far East title, they do have several new wrestlers on the beginning of their learning curve and are not expected to compete for the KPASS league title (regular season or tournament) or the overall Far East title (individual or dual meet). That said, it's good to beat the teams you should beat, and the numbers that came out of the night provided some an early glimpse of some trends we might see continue throughout the season.
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Olympic champions Kaori Icho and Mitsuru Sato were guest coaches at wrestling practice on Monday, December 9 at ASIJ. They provided instruction on some fundamentals, had the wrestlers practice what they learned, and gave individual tips and pointers to implement their instruction correctly. Getting a taste of the world's best was a great experience for the Mustang wrestlers. Ms. Icho is the greatest female individual-event Olympic athlete in the history of the world. She had an unbelievable undefeated streak from 2003-2016, won the Olympic gold medal four times (2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016), and is a ten-time World Champion in freestyle wrestling. Mr. Sato won the gold for Japan at 52 kg at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, is currently an active university wrestling coach, and functions as a senior statesman type figure in the wrestling world in Japan. Wrestling has been contested at the Olympics since the sport was introduced as the 4th event in the 708 BC Olympic Games. In the modern era, the women's competition was introduced in 2004, so 2020 will be the first time in history that the gold medal winner will not be Ms. Icho. Prior to their time in the wrestling room Mr. Sato and Ms. Icho met with ASIJ students in the Olympics club and a Japanese class, where they talked about their careers, overcoming hardship, and the joys of success and the path to attain it. As the wrestlers were warming up, and the coaches were plotting with Mr. Sato on how diabolical of a practice to instill, Ms. Icho, who wears her celebrity lightly, talked with the parents and others who had come to see her, easily agreeing to requests for photos and signatures. Maybe it's the blue-collar nature of the sport, or maybe it's her personality, but she was about as approachable and nice and normal as you could possibly dream. She was especially encouraging to Serena, one of the girls from the middle school program. It really says something about the coaches at ASIJ that they can get this kind of unprecedented talent to come to the school and work with the wrestlers. The time spent with world class coaching and a best-in-history competitor was an incredible experience. Here are some early season thoughts (in no particular order).
- Alumni: Egan, Kieran, and Zenon are 2019 grads who made key contributions to last season's tremendous success. They attended the Yokota dual meet and did a great job of interacting with, taking questions from, and generally passing on their winning tradition to the next wave of Mustangs. One of the items on the now-famous "program goals whiteboard" is to make and keep a connection with alumni. These three new alumni are fulfilling the very goal they helped put in place. - Whiteboard: Another wrestler-generated program goal from the whiteboard is to garner more spectators. If you've ever wrestled against the University of Iowa in the 15,500-person Carver-Hawkeye Arena, you know the power of a horde of rabid fans cheering or booing your every move (in the likely event you haven't, suffice it to say they call it a home court advantage for a reason). In addition to above mentioned alumni, we saw a good number of parents, teachers, classmates and administration - to include Head of School Jim Hardin and High School Principal Dr. Jon Herzenberg - attend the first dual meet of the season held at ASIJ. - Flexibility: The ability to adapt, improvise, and overcome whatever is thrown your way can make the difference between success and failure. The dual meet was in danger of being cancelled at one point and was moved from Yokota to at ASIJ at the last minute. Wrestling has a major mental component, and sudden changes to a plan can throw you off into a line of thinking about why things aren't happening the way you thought they would. Mustang wrestlers didn't let the uncertainty disturb their preparation, keeping focus on their wrestling. - Grit: There was a hole at 122, so Katsumi (115) filled in. His opponent was a former Far East champ who has been a near-automatic win for Yokota the last few years. It would have been easy to evade the tough matchup, but he took it head-on. Similarly, you saw a string of hard fought exhibition matches with Take Z, Michiru, Kaz, Connor, and Luke winning and losing close, back-and-forth matches as underdogs against their foes. It's good to sometimes go against someone worse than you, sometimes your same level is good, and sometimes trying out your stuff out against a tough opponent is good, especially early in the year. You can bet the February version of these wrestlers would easily beat the current version of themselves, partly due to this experience. - Getting behind: Kai H was down 11-4. Karson was losing 6-2. Matthew had just lost his lead to a basic move. Yo was behind 5-2. What did they all have in common? They did not let their deficit ruin their mindset, kept wrestling tough, and pinned their opponent for their first win of the season (and for some, first win as a wrestler at ASIJ). It's not good to fall behind early or to give up a lead, but the ability to keep at it, giving your all until the final second ticks off the clock shows a mental toughness that will prove useful throughout the season and, hopefully, will be a capability that remains with them throughout their lives. Wednesday night ASIJ hosted Yokota Panthers, after a little last-minute rejiggering, in the first conference dual meet of the season for both teams. The Mustangs beat the Panthers 54-9 to start the season with an overwhelming win.
Kaisei kicked things off with a forfeit win at 101. Bryce and Leon followed that up with first-minute pins of their opponents at 108 and 115, to set the tone for the evening and stake the team out to an early 15-0 lead. Katsumi wrestled up a weight to fill in for an injury opening at 122. He battled valiantly against the former Far East champ but ended up on the wrong end of a 10-0 tech fall. Take took a forfeit at 129. Kai H then fell behind 11-4 before taking down and pinning his 135-pound opponent, pushing the team score to 25-4. At 141 Ricky pinned his Panther after going up 10-0. Karson pulled a page from the Kai H playbook, going down 6-2 before breaking out an exposure-to-pin combination at 148. Rin got his 28th straight win, going back to the 2017-18 season, via tech fall, extending the ASIJ lead to 39-4. Shawn took an 8-0 lead before pinning his opponent in the first period at 168. Liam took a forfeit at 180. Dani bookended the ASIJ wrestling nicely with a first period pin at 215. Yokota got a forfeit at HWT for the final score of 54-9. After the varsity dual meet finished, Yokota varsity wrestlers graciously provided the JV Mustangs with several exhibition matches to increase their experience. Many Mustangs went up or down a weight in order to wrestle a live match against someone they don't see in practice every day, and overall they looked competitive. Kaisei won via first period pin. Shaun gave up a 10-0 tech fall. Take won a close 13-11 decision. Michiru gave up a 2nd period pin in a back-and-forth affair. Kaz tied up the scored at 6-6 before getting pinned. Connor came up just short in a 10-8 loss. Luke couldn't overcome an early 4-point throw and lost 11-8. After so many close ones, Matthew turned a 2-2 score into a first period pin. Liam followed suit with the gentlest 4-point-takedown-to-pin combo you'll ever see (great sportsmanship against an overmatched opponent). Aaryan got pinned. Dani pinned his opponent. In all-ASIJ action, Kazuma pinned Take K, Isak pinned Alex, and Yo came back from a 5-2 deficit to pin Harald. This was a fantastic way to start out the season. Yokota has a bunch of new wrestlers, but they've got some very tough ones, too, and they've got some techniques that ASIJ doesn't necessarily see all the time. The actual match experience the Mustangs got against the Panthers will help in knowing what to work on in the weeks before ASIJ wrestling picks up again in January. The dual meet win also staked ASIJ out to an early lead in the KPASS conference regular season standings. |
PhilSend me a note at [email protected] if you have ideas for a story or corrections/additions to these write-ups. Archives
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