As the season fires up for most of the college wrestling programs this weekend, one of the most confusing aspects of dual meets have been the tie-breaking criteria. This has changed several times throughout the last decade. In this year’s NCAA wrestling rulebook, there has been a modification in how dual meet ties are broken. They are outlined below.
If a wrestling official wants to say something different, direct him to the rulebook and make sure it’s the 2013-14 and 2014-15 Rules and Interpretations. Heck, even print out the page and keep it in your wrestling folder!
The difference from this year to last is 3.15.2. Instead of it being the team with greater number of techs and falls, it’s the team with the greater number of 6-point victories.
3.15 Breaking Ties in Dual Meets and Team-Advancement Tournaments
When two teams finish in a tie in a dual meet or a team-advancement tournament, the following criteria shall be applied to determine a winner:
3.15.1 Greater number of victories.
Note: Forfeits, defaults and disqualifications count toward total number of victories.
3.15.2 Combined total number of falls, forfeits, defaults and disqualifications.
3.15.3 Total match points scored only from decisions, major decisions and technical falls.
3.15.4 First takedown.
One team point shall be awarded to the team winning by criteria. The method of recording the score in breaking team ties shall be the score followed by the criterion number that broke the tie.
This can be found on WR-28 in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 Rules and interpretations. There is a link to the rulebook here (page 32 in the PDF view)
http://awn.theopenmat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/RULEBOOK_2013.pdf
