How the leaderboard works

Before the formula, the scope. A rating is built from a short, fixed list of results — these, and nothing else.

Varsity duals & tournaments

This season

CIF Section championships

Last season

Masters & Divisional championships

Last season

National opens — Fargo, Super 32

Last season

CIF State Championships

Last 3 seasons

What a match is worth · How a postseason result carries over · Why a national medal is worth a State medal

Only CIF State reaches past last season.Everything else is one season deep. The long window exists to keep crediting proven state medalists — so a wrestler who lost a year to injury comes back seeded on what they proved — not to drag every old section placer back onto the board. A State medal doesn't fade with age either: a title from three years ago lands on the same rung as this year's.

Competition opens Nov 2, 2026 for the 2026-2027 season. Before then the board is built entirely from the postseason results carried over from previous seasons, which is why every wrestler on it shows no matches yet.

Every wrestler starts each season at 1000. From there, your rating moves after every match:

Rating = previous rating ± match points + quality-win bonus + postseason bonus

The leaderboard is recalculated from scratch after every event, in date order, so the whole season counts — not just your last tournament. Every match on the same day is scored from the ratings wrestlers had that morning, so the order a day's matches happened in never changes the result. You're ranked against wrestlers in your own weight class and gender. When two wrestlers finish within 30 rating points, a head-to-head result breaks the tie — see below.

Pick a section instead of Stateto see the same rating re-ranked among wrestlers in that CIF section. It's the identical number — just a section-only leaderboard, not a separate score.

Match points work like chess ratings (Elo): beating a higher-rated wrestler earns a lot; beating a lower-rated one earns a little. Losses mirror that — losing to a top wrestler costs you almost nothing, losing an upset costs the most.

Example: you're rated 1000 and beat an opponent rated 1100. You had roughly a 36% chance to win, so the upset pays +20.5for a decision. If they beat you (the expected result), they'd only earn +11.5.

Base match points are zero-sum, before the quality-win rule below: whatever the winner earns, the loser drops. So that upset costs them −20.5, while losing the expected way would have cost you only −11.5. Wrestling up is cheap; losing to someone you were favored to beat is what hurts.

How you win matters — bonus-point wins are scaled up:

Same upset by fall: +20.5 × 1.20 = +24.6. A pin is worth 20% more than a decision, every time.

Only varsity matches count toward your rating, and forfeits never do.JV and other non-varsity results don't factor into the leaderboard, and forfeit, injury-default, and medical-forfeit bouts award zero points and don't appear in your leaderboard record at all — you can't gain or lose rating off the mat. (JV matches do count toward season milestones, which are not part of the rating.)

A win only moves your rating if the opponent is credible — currently ranked, carrying a postseason seed, or a returning medalist. Beating an unproven or clearly weaker opponent keeps just 10% of its match points (nearly nothing). So stacking wins at a small tournament, or wrestling more events, doesn't climb you — and sitting out a weekend can't drop you, because no one is gaining on empty wins. Losing to a credible opponent counts in full. Losing to an unproven one counts in full too if you are credible — but when neither wrestler is, the loser gives up only the same 10% the winner keeps, so a match between two unproven wrestlers barely moves either one.

Against a credible opponent you earn extra points on top of match points, by their rank in their weight class going into the day you beat them:

Ranks take a few matches to form, so early in the season a returning medalist counts as a credible, bonus-worthy win by their best finish — beating a CIF State placer is worth more than a Tier 3 placer:

A medal counts here for exactly the window it counts for in your seed — 3 seasons for a CIF State medal, last season for every other tournament. That is deliberate: if a wrestler is rated and ranked off a medal from three years ago, beating them has to be worth what that rating says it is.

The larger of the two (current rank vs. returning medal) applies — they don't stack. Either way a big scalp pays twice: full match points and the bonus.

Rating is the body of your whole season, so it can leave two wrestlers a hair apart. When that happens — within 30 rating points — whoever won the match between them that season is ranked ahead, even if their rating is fractionally lower.

It only settles near-ties: a clear rating gap of more than 30 points is decided by rating, not one result. A split series (each wins one) stays on rating. Head-to-head already moves your rating through match points too — this rule just makes sure a clean win over a near-equal is never buried under it.

Placing in the postseason is the biggest single boost you can earn — and only your best finish counts. Every postseason result sits on one rung of a single ladder, from a State title at the top down through State placings, making State, then Tier 2 finishes, then Tier 3 finishes. Your rung is your best result of the year.

For the rounds themselves — which events your section runs, in what order, and how many wrestlers advance out of each one — see the road to state.

The ladder is the same everywhere; the names are not.Every wrestler climbs the same three tiers, but each section calls its rounds what it calls them. Southern Section runs a Masters at Tier 2; North Coast's Tier 2 is its section championship and it holds no Masters at all. Below that, most sections run Divisionals and CCS and Los Angeles run Regionals. We show you the name your section actually uses.

The tiers are one run, not three tournaments — you can't reach State without clearing the ones below it. So climbing pays the difference between rungs, not a fresh bonus at each stop. Win your Tier 3, then place 3rd at Tier 2, then 6th at State, and you end up with what a State 6th is worth. Adding all three together is what used to let a deep qualifying run outscore the State finish it led to.

Tournament weights do two things. They set the order of the tiers — which finishes outrank which — and, within a tier, they price each tournament's field: a tournament's rungs pay in proportion to its weight against the heaviest tournament on its tier. Winning the deepest Tier 2 bracket in the state pays that rung in full; winning one weighted at a third of it pays a third. Two champions, same rung, different fields — different points.

Section strength still counts — inside your rung. A section that gets more State spots than its neighbours is being told, by the people who allocate them, that it is a deeper bracket — so a wrestler out of a deeper section sits higher among everyone who shares their finish. Depth is read straight off those allocations rather than off who happened to show up last year, which means it also works one level down: where a section runs divisions, each division is measured against its sibling divisions and then against how far its section itself advances. Each rung has a small band for this, worth about 35% section depth and 65% what you did in the rounds below. The band is deliberately capped well short of the next rung, so a deeper section can never lift you past a better finish.

A top-8 finish at a national tournament — Fargo, Super 32 and events like them — counts as the same finish at CIF State. A national 3rd is scored as a State 3rd, a national title as a State title.

It counts for one season, not three. A CIF State placing keeps seeding for 3seasons; a national medal seeds the season after it was won and then stops. State is the whole state's own bracket and the most durable evidence this board has. A national open is one weekend against a field that is mostly not from here, entered by wrestlers who chose to travel — good evidence of what someone could do last summer, thin evidence about two seasons later.

It's the finish that counts, not the bracket.A national result enters as a placing, so the individual matches behind it don't move your rating on their own — unlike a varsity match in your season, which does.

Freestyle and Greco-Roman count the same. Both are scored identically and both earn a badge, so a wrestler who medals in each wears two — that is two accomplishments, not one.

Why a Fargo medal is worth a State medal

We checked this against results rather than assuming it, using every California wrestler who medaled at Fargo in 2025 and 2026 — 109 medals.

First, we followed the same wrestlers to both tournaments. Counting medals proves nothing on its own, because every California wrestler is in the CIF pipeline and only a few travel to Fargo. The fair test takes wrestlers who competed at both in the same year and asks where each one placed higher.

Four of the five groups land within about a place of each other — that is what “the same” looks like. Not one California girl in two years placed higher at Fargo than she did at State. 16U boys are the only group that finished better at Fargo, and they get their own rule below.

Second, we checked what a Fargo medal predicts. Of the 17 Californians who medaled at 16U Fargo in 2025 and came back for a California season, 16 medaled at CIF State that year. A returning State medalist medals again 82% of the time. So a Fargo medal predicts a State medal at least as well as a State medal does — which is the whole reason the two are scored alike. At the Junior level they are usually the same wrestlers anyway: 25 of the 27 California 18U Fargo medalists in 2026 already held a CIF State medal.

The one exception: 16U boys

A 16U boys Fargo finish is scored 2 places lower than the same finish at CIF State. CIF State is open to every grade; Fargo’s 16U bracket is not. A sophomore who places at State did it against seniors. At 16U he wrestles only boys his own age — the same wrestler against a younger field.

Every California boy who medaled at 16U Fargo and at that season’s CIF State:

Six placed higher at Fargo, one higher at State. Two won 16U national titles the same year they finished 7th in California — without this adjustment each would be seeded ahead of every CIF State medalist at his weight.

Why girls are not adjusted.We ran the identical test on 16U girls and found no gap — half a place, well inside the noise. There is a reason the younger field doesn’t show up on the girls’ side: California awards the same 112 State medals to 4,456 girls as it does to 6,707boys, which makes the girls’ State podium somewhat easier to reach. The two effects cancel out, so adjusting girls would make the leaderboard less accurate, not more.

The adjustment is to points only. Badges are never discounted — a national champion is a national champion on this board, and the badge shows the finish exactly as it was won.

Three things that never change

It can only help you. The ladder gives you one rung — your single best result — so a national medal replaces your CIF finish only when it beats it. A State champion who has a quieter summer keeps their State rung untouched.

Beating one counts too.Because a national medal is worth a State medal, a wrestler who placed at nationals is treated as a returning State medalist: beat them next season and you earn the same bonus you’d earn for beating a State placer. That is the one way these results reach wrestlers who never went.

National results carry their own badge, and it names the exact bracket the medal came from — Fargo 16U GR Champ, Fargo Junior FS 3rd. Fargo runs four brackets a summer, two age divisions crossed with two styles, and a 16U title and a Junior title are not the same accomplishment. The badge sits alongside a CIF badge rather than replacing it: placing at State and at nationals in the same year are two different things, and the board shows both. A Fargo medal looks the same whichever summer it was won in — every medal keeps one colour — and the year stamped after it is what tells you which.

The team boardranks programs, not wrestlers. A school's score is built one weight class at a time:

For each of the 14weight classes, take the school's best wrestler there and count their rating minus 850 — at full value once they have 3 matches, and a matching fraction of it before that. Add them up. A weight nobody fills counts zero.

Every number in that sum comes from a rating and a record already printed on this site, so the score is something you can check rather than something you have to trust. Open a team on the board and it lays out the lineup weight by weight, with what each wrestler contributed and every empty weight shown contributing nothing. Individual ratings are part of what the season pass unlocks, so a free viewer sees who is in the lineup and a pass holder sees the arithmetic.

Four things worth knowing

Only one wrestler scores per weight. Three good 126-pounders earn what one earns. A team is a lineup, and only one of them wrestles the dual.

An empty weight never costs you anything. It scores zero rather than subtracting, so adding any wrestler can only help their school. What a hole costs is the points you would otherwise have earned there.

Unranked wrestlers still score. A wrestler needs 3 matches to be ranked, but a rating is a rating — about a quarter of the board is rated without a rank, and they count for their team. Being unranked is never a reason to score nothing.

A new rating counts for less until it has been tested. One match in, a wrestler brings a third of their points; two matches in, two thirds; at 3, all of them. Everyone starts a season at 1000, and that opening number is worth points under the baseline before a single match has been wrestled — this is what stops a program collecting them by fielding names. It is a discount, never an exclusion: the wrestler is in the lineup from their first match, and the weight is not a hole.

Because of that, the wrestler who scores a weight is whoever brings the most points, which is not always the highest rating on the roster. A teammate with a full season behind a 1300 outscores a 1600 that has been tested once — and adding that 1600 to the room still cannot cost the team anything.

Why 850, and what it does

It sits below the lowest rating on either board, so every rated wrestler is worth a positive number to their team and nobody is ever a penalty. It is also the balance between depth and top-end talent, and the balance is deliberate: a six-weight team of state placers finishes well ahead of a fourteen-weight team of average wrestlers, but filling weights genuinely helps.

That is why the board shows how many weights a program fills next to its score. A school with one ranked wrestler is on the board at 1/14 — it is not broken, it is thin, and the column says which.

Team scores are rebuilt every time the leaderboard recomputes, so a school's standing moves as results come in.

The tournament board grades how tough a field was, 1 to 5 — 1 is the toughest field in the state, 5 is wide open. It grades the people who entered, not the trophy: a small invitational that drew half the state's top ten is a harder weekend than a big one that drew nobody.

For each weight class, add up what every entrant is worth. Bucket that number into a grade. Then average the weights' numbers — not their grades — and bucket the average for the event.

What one entrant is worth

Two lenses, and a wrestler counts for the higher of the two, never the sum. A returning state champ who is also currently #1 is one great wrestler in the bracket, not two — the same rule the rating engine uses when it prices a win.

The second lens is why a December tournament grades honestly. In week 3 almost nobody is ranked yet, so on current rank alone a field of returning state medalists would score close to zero and the calendar would decide the grade instead of the field. By March the two lenses mostly agree, because the season has re-established the same wrestlers.

Pedigree looks back 3 seasons, the same window the preseason seed uses and the same shape: last season counts at every level, older seasons at State only. A national top-8 from last season is priced as a State medal here, exactly as it is under National tournaments — the engine and the grade must agree on what a returning medalist is worth.

The cutoffs

The Grade 1 cut is anchored, not a percentile. 42is the line that, measured on the 2025–26 board, took exactly the six events a California coach would name as the season's toughest fields — State (Boys and Girls), CIF Southern Section Ford Masters (Boys and Girls), 5 Counties, and CIF Central Section Masters (Boys) — and nothing else.

When a weight, or an event, doesn't grade

A thin bracket is missing data, not an easy weight. Under 8 entrants a weight class is left ungraded rather than scored as a 5 — counting it would drag down every tournament that happened to run one light class.

So is a bracket we couldn't match to wrestler records. An entrant with no record has no rating, so no points, which would make the tournament grade easier than it was. Below 80% matched, the weight is suppressed instead of published soft.

An event needs at least 4 gradeable weights to carry an overall grade at all. Below that the detail page shows the weights that did grade and no headline number — a handful of brackets have not told you enough about a whole tournament. An event with no gradeable weight at all — a dual meet, a six-man round robin — is not listed on the board; its own page still shows what it ran.

Forfeits are not contests. A forfeit counts on neither side, the same rule the rating follows, so a bracket cannot grade tougher by carrying a body that never wrestled, or grade unmatched because of a placeholder that never existed.

Grades are recomputed after every event, because ranks move after every event. The detail page prints the date the board it was graded against was computed, and every entrant that fed the number is listed there by name — so the grade is something you can check rather than something you have to trust.

Ratings reset to 1000each season — but postseason results follow you. Your starting rating is set by the same ladder: your best finish picks your rung, and that rung's value is your head start.

A state medal counts for 3 seasons.Last season carries everything — every tier, and a national open with it. The seasons before it carry CIF State results only: a Masters medal, a Section title or a Fargo medal from two years back seeds nothing. A state medal doesn't fade with age, though — a title from three years ago lands on the same rung as this year's, so a wrestler who missed a season to injury comes back seeded on what they proved, not on the year they lost.

Making State without a medal counts too — if you sat out last postseason.A wrestler who made State in an earlier season of that window, then missed the whole postseason last year, still starts on the made-State rung, ordered by how many matches they won there. If you did wrestle last postseason, that newer result is what seeds you, however it went. It only carries when we have a grade on file showing you're still in high school this season — with no grade on file it doesn't count, because we can't tell a returning wrestler from one who graduated. The section exception below applies here too.

What an older medal can't do is separate itself insidethat rung. The fine adjustment within a rung is earned by the rest of that season's run — the Tier 2 and Tier 3 results underneath the medal — and older seasons don't carry those. So two State runners-up from three years back sit level, where two from last season would be ordered by what they did to get there. It can never cost a rung: a medal still seeds ahead of every lesser finish, whatever year it came from.

Those seasons are weighed separately, and only the best one counts. They are never added together — placing at State three years running seeds you off your best of the three, not off all three combined. If two seasons tie, the most recent one is the one shown.

A better finish always seeds ahead of a worse one from the same bracket.State 5th starts above State 6th, which starts above State 8th — every time, whatever section they came from and whatever they did at Tier 2: everyone at State wrestled one shared bracket, so State rungs always pay in full. Below State, each rung is also priced by its tournament's field weight — a Tier 2 title from the tier's heaviest field outseeds the same title from a lightly-weighted one. Your other results and your section's depth move you within your rung's band, and the band is too narrow to reach the rung above.

Making State is its own rung. Qualifying — win or lose once you get there — seeds you above every Tier 2 and Tier 3 finish, because a wrestler who went 0–2 at State still cleared every tier below it to get there.

Among fellow qualifiers who didn't medal, two things separate you and the stronger of the two counts: the best medal you won at any round below, and how far you got at the event you qualified for. With no medal on either side, a 3–2 run that just missed the podium starts ahead of an 0–2 exit — and out of a comparable section, a wrestler who won a round below starts ahead of both. The same rule applies at every qualifier rung, not just State: reaching Tier 2 without medalling there never erases a Tier 3 title.

Two details that follow from it. A medal is read at its place, so a Tier 3 title and a Tier 2 title count the same here — what differs is the rung each one puts you on, and only the best rung is in play. And your section's depth is still 35% of where you land inside the band, so a medal out of a shallow section does not automatically outseed a deep run out of a heavy one. Neither can reach the rung above.

There is one exception: Oakland Section and San Francisco Section (boys). Each gets a single State spot per weight class and holds no Tier 2 round above its section final, so reaching State there is the section title rather than a run through one — and that rung is priced for a run through one. Wrestlers from these sections seed off what they actually did instead: a State medal still counts in full, as does any finish below it. Only the bare appearance earns nothing.

Competing without placing still counts — below State, it needs at least one win. A winless Section run shows in your seed breakdown with its record, but adds nothing.

Seniors graduate.A senior is ranked normally through their final season, but a grade-12 season doesn't seed the next one — graduated wrestlers don't appear on the following year's board. That depends on knowing the grade. When we have none on record for a returning wrestler, the board says grade unknown— and if you know they graduated, use the report flag on their row (in the rating drawer, or in a team's lineup) and pick Graduated / no longer in school. An admin confirms it and they come off at the next recompute.

Every varsity match counts — there's no such thing as an unranked match. But you hold a numbered spot on the board only once you have 3 counted matches in the season.

Why the minimum? One or two matches is too small a sample to trust: a 1-0 wrestler who beat one weak opponent shouldn't out-rank proven wrestlers with hard schedules — and quality-win bonuses for beating "ranked" opponents would be built on meaningless ranks.

Under the minimum you're still rated, with full match history — you're listed in the "fewer than 3matches" group below the board until you qualify. Your weight class is wherever you wrestled most recently.

Looking up one wrestler is free.Search anyone, and their row — rank, rating, record, badges, and how far the next line is — opens without paying, whatever their rank and whether or not they've hit the 3-match minimum. A family should never have to buy something to find out where their wrestler stands.

The season pass buys the board.That's the ordered field: every wrestler in a weight class, in order, with who is above and below whom. It's the scouting view, and it's what coaches actually pay for. Signed out or unpaid, you see the top 3 plus whoever you looked up.

Past-season leaderboards are a free archive — nothing on them is behind the pass.

The board is saved once a week. Weeks run Sunday through Saturday, so a tournament never lands half in one week and half in the next, and the week closes after Saturday's results are in.

The arrow next to a wrestler is movement since the previous week — ▲3 means they were three spots lower a week ago. NEWmeans they weren't on that board at all last week. Use the week dropdown to see any past week of the season; picking one moves the whole board, arrows and match history included, back to how it stood that Saturday night.

Week 1 moves hard, and that's expected.It's measured against the Preseason board, which ranks every returning wrestler on last season's results before anyone has wrestled — so week 1 is the first time the 3-match minimum applies and the two boards hold different people.

Biggest climbersabove the board is the same arrow, read across every wrestler at once: the three who gained the most spots since last week. It shows climbers only — rank movement is zero-sum, so every wrestler who went up pushed someone else down, and we don't put a kid's worst week on the front of the board. It's hidden on the Preseason board, which has no previous week to have moved from.

The P4P tab at the start of the weight row ranks every ranked wrestler of one gender, across all weights, by rating. No adjustment for weight class: every weight's ratings sit on the same scale, so the highest number is the best season so far, whatever the weight. Two wrestlers from the same weight always keep their order from that weight's board, so a head-to-head tiebreak there holds here too.

The Jumpstab next to it lists the week's largest rating gains, across every weight — this week's rating minus last week's. It counts rating points rather than spots, because a spot at a deep weight and a spot at a thin one are not the same distance. Climbers only, for the same reason as the weight boards, and it starts once there are two weeks of results to compare. Both tabs follow the State and Section you have picked.

Before anyone has wrestled, the new season's ratings are carried-over seeds that tie in large groups, so the preseason P4P list shows last season's final ratingsinstead, with graduated seniors removed. It switches to this season's ratings once the first week of results is in.

Badges are the accomplishments shown under a wrestler's name. They're earned by fixed rules — nobody hands them out.

• Fargo ChampWon a national title at Fargo — 16U or Junior, freestyle or Greco
• CIF State ChampWon a CIF State title
• 2ndCIF State 2ndPlaced top 8 at CIF State
• CIF State QualifierWrestled at CIF State
• All-AmericanAll-American — top 8 at Fargo, 16U or Junior, freestyle or Greco
• Masters / Section ChampWon a Masters or Section title
• 2ndMasters / Section 2ndPlaced top 8 at Masters or Section
• Divisional / Regional ChampWon a Divisional or Regional title
• 2ndDivisional / Regional 2ndPlaced top 8 at a Divisional or Regional
• #1State #1Best in the state
• #8Top 8Top 8 in the state
• #25Top 25Top 25 in the state
• #1Section #1Best in their section
• Beat a Top 5Beat a top-5 wrestler
• 55 Notable WinsWins over placers and medalists
• UndefeatedNo losses, 3+ wins

Results from an earlier season carry over, tagged with the year — a returning state placer keeps that badge with the season it was earned written after it. The medal itself does not change colour: a State medal is the same gold in every season, and the year is what separates them. A row reads as a timeline — oldest season first, this season last — so the medals on the right are the ones won since. It sits alongside the current-season badge rather than replacing it, so a wrestler who placed last season and won this one shows both.

Badges are grouped, and only the best one in each group is shown — a state champion doesn't also carry “State Placer”, and a #1 doesn't also carry “Top 8”. Rows have limited room, so the board shows the most significant few with a +N for the rest; open a wrestler to see all of them.

The postseason is the exception — every level earns its own badge. Section, Masters and State are three separate tournaments, entered and won separately, so a wrestler who wins their section and then places at state shows both. Within one level it's still the single best finish: nobody carries “State Champ” and “State Placer” at once.

Badges are saved with each weekly board, the same way ranks are. A past week shows the badges that had actually been earned by then — winning state in week 9 doesn't add a badge to the week 4 board.

The badges above are the hard ones — a state medal, a top-8 rank, an undefeated season. Open a wrestler and, below those, 24 season milestones track the things every wrestler can work toward: a first win, pins, bonus-point wins, a win streak, placing at a tournament, wrestling at a second weight.

Unlike the badges, these show before they're earned, with how far along you are — “3/5 pins”. That's the point of them: a wrestler who hasn't medalled should still have a next thing to chase. Cleared rungs stay, and only the next one in each group shows a bar.

JV matches count here— and only here. Ratings, ranks and records are varsity-only; a JV wrestler's pins are still pins, and milestones are the one place that's reflected.

Milestones are counted from the matches we have on record, and the panel says how many that was. We hold a fraction of some schedules, so a milestone can arrive late as results are ingested — but it is never awarded for something that didn't happen. Forfeits never count: they weren't wrestled, so they neither earn a milestone nor break a streak.

One honest limit on streaks.Matches carry a date and, usually, a bracket round — but never a clock. Where the round is recorded we put the matches in true bracket order. Where it isn't, and several matches share a day, we can't know which came first, so a streak counted across them may be longer or shorter than what actually happened. Every other milestone counts totals and is unaffected; this is the only one that depends on order.

• Finish matches. A pin pays 20% more than a decision — bonus points compound over a season.
• Wrestle up, not down. Beating higher-rated and ranked opponents is where big points live; padding a record against unranked wrestlers barely moves you.
• Peak for the postseason. A single postseason placement can outweigh weeks of regular-season wins — and it seeds you higher next year.
• Losses to great wrestlers are cheap. Taking a match against a top seed risks little rating and offers the biggest upside in the system.

Open any wrestler and the panel shows how far the next line is: Top 25 → Top 8 → #1, with the rating points still needed to catch the wrestler currently holding it. That number is not a separate score — it's the gap between two ratings already printed on the board, so you can check it yourself. The bar fills across the band between the line just cleared and the next one up.

Underneath it, anything countable a wrestler is close to earning — matches left to reach the 3-match minimum, notable wins left to reach 5. Only badges with a number attached appear there; the rest are earned in a single match and there's no distance to report.

That meter measures distance to a rank. The season milestones below it measure distance to a count— pins, wins in a row, tournaments placed at — and those show whether or not you've started them.