This was more like it.

A year after watching it become a mere remnant of its former self, Tyler Taylor and his committee, with an unwavering determination, breathed new life into the Southern Tier Wrestling Officials Association (STWOA) tournament, making a pivotal change in dates to allow for more participation, expanding the field from eight to 27 teams and enhancing its caliber by welcoming over 40 state-ranked wrestlers and several top-flight programs.

The latter was particularly important as the two-day event — in its second year back following a two-year COVID-related hiatus — boasted a number of state championship-level matches and generated an atmosphere similar to the state championship itself. It also became a valuable recruiting tool.

“That was a big deal,” Taylor said of the bump in wrestling talent, “and that’s what’s going to draw in much higher competition; we did get some teams in this year that came in because of that exact reason. And a lot of our teams came back for that exact reason, so that’s a big plus, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do.”

Taylor managed to restore much of the luster that the tournament boasted back in its hey-day of the early 2000s. It closely resembled what Taylor had remembered competing in as a Bolivar-Richburg grappler in that same era.

Having established that framework a year ago, the goal now has become a bit easier:

Just keep growing it.

And entering this year’s event, set for Friday and Saturday at Jamestown Community College’s Carnahan Athletics Complex, that’s exactly what Taylor and his group have begun to do.

The 2024 STWOA will feature 29 teams, up two from last year. Among that group are five Big 30 teams: Bolivar-Richburg, Cameron County, Olean, Oswayo Valley and Portville, including a quartet of top seeds from Bolivar-Richburg — Teegan Sibble (108 pounds, No. 3), Presley McDowell (No. 3, 116), Gary McDowell Jr. (131, No. 2) and Tavyn MacDonell (170, No. 2) — and two from Portville: Henry Chamberlain (215, No. 2) and Josh Kriger (285, No. 4).

“We lost a couple of teams for different reasons, but we added a couple of new teams that wanted to get involved, so it’s nice to have that draw,” Taylor said. “And every year, we’ll just keep growing it as much as we can until we kind of reach our capacity limit. Our mark probably is gonna be 35 teams as long as we stay at the JCC venue.”

In addition to the uptick in participants, the competition standard has again been raised.

Indeed, seven of the top 10 teams in the most recent WNY Athletics small school rankings are scheduled to compete this weekend, including the top three (Chautauqua Lake, Falconer/Cassadaga Valley and Newfane). Two of the top large schools (and a couple of honorable mentions) will also be on hand: No. 8 Jamestown and No. 1 St. Francis, the latter of whom doubles as the state’s top-ranked Division I team, per New York Wrestling News.

Additionally, the STWOA will spotlight Allegany County power B-R and Pennsylvania strongholds Harbor Creek, Warren, Sharpsville.

So, yes, this year’s tournament figures to be “a little bit tougher than last year’s,” Taylor acknowledged.

“An overwhelming majority (of wrestlers) have placed in either the state tournament — New York or Pennsylvania — or the qualifying tournament to get to the state tournament,” he went on. “We’re getting kids that are placing at these high-level postseason tournaments and that’s the goal; that’s the competition that we’re trying to build and keep as we continue to grow this thing like we planned on doing.”

A year ago, Taylor was admittedly stressed.

It required plenty of work to essentially start back at zero and return the tournament to respectability. Now, however, the STWOA has all but re-established itself as one of the area’s premier high school wrestling events.

“This year, outside of shifting teams around, the groundwork has been laid, the logistics are there,” said Taylor, whose brother Andrew is head coach at B-R, an honorable mention in the latest Division II state poll. “Our relationship with JCC, the athletic and coach (Brian Dowdall) has been seemingly flawless, and they’re more than willing to help out and meet our needs and to bring the amount of people and level of competition that we are bringing into their building.”

The STWOA, which has again drawn squads from the CCAA and Buffalo areas, Steuben and Allegany counties and Pennsylvania, is set to begin around 4:30 p.m. on Friday. Day 2 action will start at 9:30 a.m., with the finals scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

And if the goal last year was to restore the glory, the objective this year is simple:

Take the next step … and enjoy the prestige that has come with it.

“We’ve established what we want to stay consistent with, and that’s always going to be the high-level matches, the level of competition,” Taylor said. “We want to get these kids exposed to each other from all sorts of different regions all across New York and Pennsylvania.

“I was texting with one of the coaches today and one of his texts read, word for word, ‘fill these brackets and let these kids go at it; that’s what we need.’ And that’s gonna grow the sport of wrestling that way, when we can kind of showcase high-level stuff and really good competitive wrestlers and teams from all over the area.”