In the middle of the week, I got this feeling that this weekend’s wrestling tournament was important. I had no idea how important. I will tell part one tonight.
I arrived at the school Friday night at 5:00. The parking lot was packed!
Upon entering the gym, I learned that there were 26 schools competing. A few of the schools came from the Wichita area nearly 3 1/2 hours away!
I was so surprised at the size and scope of the tournament that I ended up printing out a list of the rankings by weight class on Saturday morning. At least four of the state’s top 12 wrestlers in each weight class were competing in this tournament!
Big A won his only match on Friday night. On Saturday morning, he beat the number 12 ranked opponent in the semi-finals pretty easily, pinning him in the third period. Actually, he had the guys shoulders flatter than a pancake for a good five seconds in the second period but the ref refused to call it.
Five hours later, he stepped onto the center mat to wrestle for the championship!
The first period ended in a scoreless tie.
In the second period, Big A lost control of his opponent (1 point) and then was taken down (2 points) to fall behind by a score of 3-0. He then escaped before the end of the period to gain one point.
In the third period, Big A escaped from his opponent’s control for a second point. With 20 seconds to go, he trailed by a score of 3-2. With 1.8 seconds to go, he took his opponent down to win the match by a score of 4-3! The crowd loved it!
I can’t tell you how happy I was for him: to win his first varsity tournament and to win a tournament of this quality all in his home gym!
Part 2 will follow tomorrow.
