Coaches, wrestlers and many fans thoroughly disliked the state dual meet tournament in Des Moines last week, but it's unlikely there will be any significant changes for next year.

Linn-Mar Coach Doug Streicher and Prairie Coach Blake Williams are strongly opposed to the new format of holding the state duals a day before the individual state tournament begins, because they feel it puts some wrestlers at a disadvantage.

Alan Beste, the Iowa High School Athletic Association official who ran the state dual meet tournament, said the IHSAA will consider moving the dual meet tournament to an earlier date in future years, but he doubts it could happen as quickly as 2013.

He said the matter will be discussed this spring with the wrestling coaches advisory board, but he said the IHSAA would have to find a convenient date that would not interfere with other established events on the calendar if the state duals are moved.

The state duals were held in Cedar Rapids in 2011, one week after the individual state tournament was held in Des Moines, but Beste said it's unlikely that will happen again. Coaches are opposted to that time frame, because it forces wrestlers to maintain their body weight an extra week.

"I think that's pretty much off the table," said Beste.

The most likely solution - and probably the most popular - is to hold the state dual meet tournament in January, several weeks prior to the indivdual state tournament in February. However, that also would require securing a location and finding a date to hold a qualifying round for the state duals.

Overall, Beste thought the state dual meet tournament was a success, despite the complaints. "We're really pleased with the crowd, we're really pleased with the logistics of the entire tournament," he said last Wednesday night in Des Moines.

"It reminds me a lot of the individual tournament, just in terms of noise level and excitement and enthusiasm and those kind of things. And that's great.

"That's one of the reasons that we wanted to make a change, to bring this in with the individual (tournament), to make it more of a state tournament event. Get people excited about dual team wrestling, and I think it happened."

Linn-Mar and Southeast Polk did not use any of their individual state qualifiers in the state dual meet tournament. Prairie gave all of its individual qualifiers at least one match in the dual meet tournament, but state champ Zach Witte was the only Hawk who wrestled twice in the dual meet tournament. Coaches did not want to risk injury or fatigue with their top grapplers.

Some coaches and fans thought the state dual meet tournament was a farce, since it featured junior varsity wrestlers and wrestlers who did not qualify for the individual meet.

"Some coaches love it, some coaches hate it. They're on both sides of the issue," said Beste, an assistant executive director with the IHSAA.

The state dual meet tournament was held at Wells Fargo Arena on Wednesday, followed by the individual state tournament that was held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Some coaches have suggested flipping the dates - hold the individual tournament on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, followed by the dual meet event on Saturday.

That's unlikely to happen, said Beste, because it would result in more wrestlers missing school on Wednesday. Under this year's format, only the 24 teams in three classes that qualified for the state duals missed school on Wednesday. If the tournaments were flipped, all the wrestlers who qualify for the individual state tournament would miss school on Wednesday.

"The reason we chose to go with the duals on Wednesday was we were trying to protect loss of school time," said Beste. "There are 24 schools here Wednesday. Tomorrow (Thursday) there are 218 schools. So we didn't want to take all 218 schools out for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So the duals on Wednesday made sense.

"I'm not sure administrators would support three days out of school for 200-plus schools, and then having the duals on Saturday," he said. "That might be a better format - the coaches might appreciate that more - I'm just not sure that's possible."

The state dual meet tournament was originally scheduled for Cedar Rapids this year at the U.S. Cellular Center, but the arena was not available due to renovation. The state duals would have been held a week after the individual tournament again this year, but the time and location changed with the arena closed for business.

This was the final year of the contract to hold the state duals in Cedar Rapids, and it's unlikely the contract would have been renewed for future years. The IHSAA likes the idea of consecutive tournaments over a four-day period at Wells Fargo arena.

"That's our intent," said Beste. "When the board (of directors) established this format in the spring of last year, the intent was that this was going to be a four-day event - duals and individual wrestling together."

It doesn't sound like the state dual meet tournament will be returning to Cedar Rapids in the near future.

"We're committed here at Wells Fargo Arena, I would guess for the next five to seven years," said Beste. "It's just a matter of how we use those four days."

Beste said finding a suitable earlier date for the state duals will require study and research. And even if the IHSAA decides to use an earlier date for the state duals in January, the IHSAA would want to give schools a year's notice so they would have a chance to reschedule events that may already have that date.

"Is there a place in the season where we could put it - mid-January perhaps; later January, perhaps - and if we did that, how would we do the qualifying tournaments?," said Beste.

He said the most likely scenario for the 2013 state dual meet tournament is exactly the same as the 2012 event: It will be held at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines on Wednesday, followed by the individual state tournament on Thursday through Saturday. The earliest the state duals would be moved would be 2014.

"This is the format that we're committed to right now, and then we'll see what kind of adjustments we may be able to make as we move forward," said Beste. "To me, this looks like the most likely format. It doesn't mean that we're resistant to change. This just seems like the most logical at this point."

Beste knows some fans were disappointed with how the state dual meet tournament unfolded.

"Some people are going to be disappointed that they came here and they saw the jayvee team from Southeast Polk wrestle," he said. "That's one way to take a look at it. That's a coach's decision.

"But I think the other way to look at it, there are some wrestlers on their team that got some great state tournament experience. We saw a lot of those decisions play out, and different coaches made different decisions.

"It gave some kids an opportunity to compete in Wells Fargo in front of several thousand people that they wouldn't normally have had."