CIF eliminates one-day championship wrestling tournaments

The CIF San Diego Section’s Board of Managers voted June 5 to delete a provision allowing CIF sections to conduct championship and qualifying tournaments in one day.

The vote will be used as direction at the state CIF meeting in October. That state vote would delete a provision allowing one-day championship and qualifying tournaments for brackets not exceeding 16 wrestlers. The change would take effect for the 2008-09 wrestling season.

“It makes sure that the student-athlete’s not wrestling more than five matches in one day,” said CIF San Diego Section commissioner Dennis Ackerman.

The rule limiting wrestlers to five matches in one day has caused complications when a wrestler is scheduled for a sixth match in a one-day tournament. Sections have seen medal round matches forfeited and have conducted wrestle-offs for medals (and potential qualifications to the CIF state championship meet) on a subsequent day. In this year’s CIF Division I tournament, Fallbrook’s Brett Jones had to default in the third-place match due to the rule limiting wrestlers to five matches in one day.

Ackerman noted that the change could possibly solve problems such as the one which saw Jones default his match. “We’ve just got to make sure,” he said.