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“Recently we moved the wrestling state tournament a week later so we aren’t competing with the Arnold Sports Festival downtown and use of the Schott by the OSU men’s ice hockey team in their postseason,” OHSAA Executive Director Jerry Snodgrass said in a release. “We had already published the future basketball season calendars for several years and we determined we couldn’t move the basketball seasons a week later right away, so for these next few years, the wrestling and girls basketball state tournaments will be on the same weekend.”
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The OHSAA said wrestling will remain at the Schottenstein Center because of the seating capacity and arena floor size. Ten mats are used for preliminary matches in the double-elimination tournament. The last three years the state wrestling tournament has averaged more than 54,000 fans over three days, including more than 11,000 for the semifinals and finals, the OHSAA said.
The OHSAA said starting the wrestling tournament on Friday has been talked about for a ‘long time’ and will alleviate school and work time missed, as well as traffic issues around the Schottenstein Center and the OSU campus.
The state wrestling tournament schedule will be modified so state championship matches on Sunday will finish in a ‘timely manner,’ the OHSAA said.
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