Fifteen Division 2 wrestlers from New York City will be competing at the state tournament in Albany this weekend.  While they are all capable of doing well, below are some of the wrestlers who enter the tournament with top credentials.

Read more: 2013 D2 State Tournament Preview

Nineteen wrestlers from New York City will be competing at the state tournament in Albany this weekend.  While they are all capable of doing well, below are some of the wrestlers who enter the tournament with top credentials.

Read more: 2013 D1 State Tournament Preview

This Sunday, February 24, Rutgers University will host the top ranked Penn State Nittany Lions wrestling team. Prior to the match, top youth wrestlers from New York City and Philadelphia will square off against each other. The BTS matches will begin at 11am. The Rutgers vs Penn State dual will follow.

This is not the first time that the Beat the Streets organizations in New York and Philadelphia have collaborated. In August 2011, BTS Wrestlers from both cities attended a wrestling camp at SUNY-Sullivan County Community College in Loch Sheldrake, NY. In January 2012, BTS Philly hosted the CSI HS Dragons out of Staten Island for a training trip and a dual meet.  In December of 2012, Mariana Bracetti Academy, a school sponsored by BTS Philly, traveled to New York to compete in the PSAL Holiday Tournament, the second day of which was held at Madison Square Garden.

The New York City team has been training hard for the event. They will be coached by 2012 BTS Junior League Coach of the Year Joe DiForte of the Monsignor Farrell Lions Wrestling Club and by Dean Morrison, who won the 1994 NCAA Division I title at 177 pounds for West Virginia and has been a longtime contributor to BTS.

Read a story on the event at TheMat.com. 

2012 Olympian Kelsey Campbell is scheduled to do a series of clinics in anticipation of the upcoming PSAL Girls Wrestling Season. Kelsey will be running a clinic on Saturday, February 23rd, 11am-2pm at the Beat the Streets Manhattan Training Center, 145 Thompson Street. This clinic is open to high school, middle school, and elementary school athletes. All participants need to have a signed Beat the Streets Permission Slip. Paperwork will be checked at the door!

About Kelsey

Kelsey Campbell did not begin wrestling until her senior year of high school. Despite her late start in the sport, she went on to become the only female wrestler in the Division I Men’s Wrestling program at Arizona State University, where she was a 2x national champion. After college, she continued to compete on the senior international circuit, earning many medals and representing the US on two world teams. She placed 5th at the 2010 World Championships and made the 2012 Olympic team. She wrestled at the 2010 Beat the Streets gala on the deck of the USS Intrepid.

The Executive Board of FILA, wrestling’s governing body, selected Las Vegas as the host of the 2015 Wrestling World Championships.  The Championships will be held at the Orleans Arena in September of 2015.  Vegas won out over competing cities Sochi, Russia; Panama City, Panama; New Delhi, India; and Tehran, Iran.  The 2015 World Championships are particularly important because they will serve as the first qualifier for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The US has served as a host to five previous Wrestling World Championship events.  The most recent World Championship hosted by the US was the 2003 tournament held in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.  The 2003 event brought together NYC’s wrestling community and the collaboration eventually led to the formation of Beat the Streets.

For more info, read the article at TheMat.com.

Over the last week, many in the media have painted a bleak outlook for the future of our sport. While as a community we must fight the IOC decision, we must also remain focused on many positive signs that demonstrate our sport is stronger than it's ever been.  Programs like Beat the Streets are helping wrestling to grow all over the United States.  

In an email to wrestling coaches across the country, NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer recently communicated the following points about how strong our sport is:

1. High school participation has grown by over 40,000 in the past decade
2. 95 new college wrestling teams (at all levels) have been established since 1999
3. Wrestling is the 6th most popular high school boys sport with over 272,000 participants
4. There are now over 8,200 young women who wrestle in high schools and we have 21 intercollegiate women's wrestling teams 
5. The 2012 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships sold an unprecedented 112,000 tickets and wrestling is among the top 5 NCAA revenue producing championships (4 consecutive sellouts)
6. Wrestling is one of the original Olympic sports and has been included in all but one Olympic competition since 1896. Only four other sports -- track and field, cycling, gymnastics and swimming -- have been in more Games.
7. There is no doubt that a strong Olympic wrestling team is helpful in our efforts to increase participation at the grass roots, high school, and college levels.   Young wrestlers need to be able to dream of being an Olympic Champion as they develop.  For this reason, we will fully support USA Wrestling’s efforts to make sure wrestling remains as an Olympic sport.

Updated Brackets have been released for this weekend’s NYSPHSAA Tournament in Albany.  One of the major changes in the bracket is that Elvin Gervacio of Brooklyn International is the new PSAL entrant at 285 lbs. in Division 2.  Another update is that Fordham Prep's Sam Melikian has been bumped up from the 5th seed to the 3rd seed.  The following City wrestlers have earned seeds:

Division 1

• Santo Curatolo, Tottenville – 8th seed at 120
• Sam Melikian, Fordham Prep – 3rd seed at 132
• Andrew Psomas, Monsignor Farrell – 3rd seed at 160
• Matt Roberts, Monsignor Farrell – 6th seed at 182
• Nathanael Rose, Eagle Academy – 7th seed at 182
• Rich Sisti, Monsignor Farrell – 4th seed at 220

Division 2

• Dolan McColgan, Petrides – 7th seed at 99
• Cheick Ndiaye, Brooklyn International – 1st seed at 113
• Tyson Simon, Petrides – 6th seed at 152
• Adis Randocic, Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy – 6th seed at 170
• Elvin Gervacio, Brooklyn International – 8th seed at 285

See the full brackets here.