STEVENS POINT, Wis. ­– What began with humble beginnings has grown into the premier management and scoring system for wrestling tournaments nationwide.

The true success story of Trackwrestling began with its founder Justin Tritz, a native of Vesper, Wis., located a few miles outside of Wisconsin Rapids. His objective was to produce a system that would assist wrestling tournament managers to seed events. His vision quickly expanded to development of the system that has revolutionized the operation and management of wrestling meets and tournaments from start to finish.

Tritz was a four-time State individual tournament qualifier for a Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln program that won State team titles in all four years of his prep career. He placed fourth in Division 1 at the 1996 WIAA State Individual Wrestling Tournament at the 112-pound weight class, and placed second and third at 119 pounds in 1997 and 1998, respectively.

He wasted little time melding his lifelong experience and love for wrestling with his professional objective while attending the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, graduating in 2003 with the majors of computer science and math. He developed the Trackwrestling prototype and was confident the system was ready for implementation. However, the challenge of generating awareness of the product and developing the market for it may have been the greatest obstacle if not for a modest encounter with the WIAA staff at the State Team Wrestling Tournament  in 2004.

Tritz recalls his introduction to the WIAA. His opportunity to pitch and convey the system’s capabilities to the WIAA was conducted in an equipment closet in the West Allis Central fieldhouse, the site of the team tournament until 2005. 

“I was a kid in college sitting in the stands watching the State team tournament, and I built up my courage to introduce myself and explain what Trackwrestling was and how it could help manage both the team and individual tournaments,” Tritz said. “I was invited to come to the WIAA office for a demo to show how it works and how it would benefit the tournaments. We put a plan in place to use it for the first time during the tournaments that next year.”

Despite some initial challenges in introducing and infusing Trackwrestling into how things were done manually for years by a veteran table crew, it didn’t take long for everyone to see the system’s efficiencies.

Since that fateful first year, Tritz indicated Trackwrestling has grown from managing 35 mostly Wisconsin-based tournaments to administering more than 8,500 tournaments worldwide annually, including 35 State Tournaments around the country, all levels of the NCAA championships and the World Championships.

“Each year we grew and added a lot more events from a percentage growth perspective, and we were adding more high-profile events,” Tritz said. “I don’t know if there was any moment that could be considered as the ‘big’moment where we expanded. From the State Tournaments perspectives, when we formed a partnership with the National Wrestling Coaches Association in 2011, they had the contacts with many state associations, and they started pushing the scoring system.”

Today, it’s difficult to imagine the State Tournaments without Trackwrestling’s real-time scoring and video, which has contributed to making the WIAA State Individual Wrestling Tournament one of the nation’s premier state high school wrestling tournaments. The WIAA’s partnership with Trackwrestling is in its 14th year with the confidence in continuing the relationship for years to come.

“We are sure that Trackwrestling will continue to provide the quality production crew that they have provided since their inception,” WIAA Deputy Director Wade Labecki said. “I cannot say enough about their quality offerings to include skin fold programming, tournament management and streaming.” 

In addition to the wrestling management system, Trackwrestling.com is now the official provider of video and data services for 40 state high school wrestling tournaments in 29 states, including Wisconsin, as the “Official Webcasting Partner” of high school wrestling on the NFHS Network. 

The recent agreement with the NFHS Network will include live and archived streaming of more than 40 state high school wrestling tournaments. Trackwrestling.com will provide the live production and live data integration on every mat and every match that will be streamed live on the NFHS Network.

“Trackwrestling has a tremendous history of providing video services in wrestling for many of our state associations, so we are excited to be able to work together to showcase the great sport of high school wrestling throughout the country,” said Mark Koski, CEO of the NFHS Network. “Having coverage of every mat and every match with Trackwrestling’s world-class data integration will greatly improve the coverage of state high 
school wrestling tournaments on the NFHS Network.”

"We could not be more excited to deepen our partnership with the NFHS Network and bring an unprecedented amount of high school postseason coverage to wrestling fans everywhere,” said Tritz. “High school state tournaments are the highlight of most careers for wrestlers across the country, and we look forward to delivering those competitions into the homes of fans across the country."

Trackwrestling will provide live scoring for the 75th Annual State Individual Wrestling Tournament Feb. 22-24 and the State Team Wrestling Tournament March 2-3. In addition, Trackwrestling will produce the live streaming for the pre-finals on the WIAA.TV portal of the NFHS Network.