Or, Mama gets to brag on her kid! (You are thereby forewarned LOL!)
Yesterday was the last regular meet of the Middle School Wrestling Season for the Pine Tree Wrestling League (PTWL — which covers about 75-80 percent of Maine). Next Saturday will be Eastern Regionals, held here in Camden at the High School (16 teams…eeeek!), and the following Saturday will be States in Bath. To say that Eli has done well in his 8th grade year is an understatement of epic proportions: he has just finished an UNDEFEATED regular season (and you better believe Mama and Papa are shouting!).
Eli pacing before a match. He sometimes strides purposefully opposite the kid he's about to wrestle as a psych-out maneuver. Wrestling is at least as much a head-game as one of physical strength and skill.
The way it works is the kids (boys and girls) are divided into weight classes that are about 8 pounds apart. Eli is wrestling 138,meaning he can’t go over 138. Fortunately, he has had a couple of pounds leeway every week. The good thing is that the league recognizes that kids grow, so every 2 weeks the weight limit goes up a pound…this coming Saturday if you weigh (for example) 140 or less, you can still wrestle in the 138 pound weight class. This year in his weight class there has not been a lot of competition…not every school has a wrestler for each of the many weight classes…in fact MOST schools don’t fill all the slots. But of the 23 scheduled pairings, Eli has wrestled about 13 matches. The ones he didn’t wrestle he gets a “win by forfeit.” So that means he “won” those 10 or so. The ones he DID wrestle he won EVERY SINGLE ONE–two by points, all the others by pinning his opponent, most often in the first period! (There are three periods of two minutes, one minute and one minute.) AND he had four exhibition matches…ones that don’t count toward the rankings for Regionals. Two he wrestled a kid from the 131 weight class, two from the 145 weight class. He won all four! Amazing…
The two boys shake hands, crouch and wait for the ref to blow the whistle. Here she is signaling to the scoring table that she is about to begin.
As soon as the whistle blows the two start trying to gain an advantage
Eli begins to take the other boy down to the mat.
Eli is in red, on top. True Bragg, our coach, and DH Paul, Assistant Coach, are in red with their backs to the camera. The Ellsworth coaches are on the opposite side of the mat behind the ref.
Sat. March 17, 2012 at Ellsworth. It took Eli less than one minute to pin his first match on Saturday, against Ellsworth. Here the ref is checking to see that the Ellsworth boy's shoulders are on the mat for one second before calling Pinned!
Then…drum roll…
For once I got it on "film"..Arm raised for the win! I took the big heavy camera and set it on "burst" mode. It took about 12 shots but at least one of the was "hand up" for the win!
After the match, the boys shake hands, the ref raises the hand of the winner, then Eli goes to the opposing coaches to shake hands, the other boy comes to shake hands with our coaches, and the next match begins.
This picture of True (left) and Paul (seated) will make every Camden-Rockport parent chuckle... it is SO typical!
Eli also had an exhibition match…as it turns out, against a boy whom he knows from track and with whom he was chatting and having fun. That kid wrestled at 131 and pretty much knew he was going to get whomped, but he tried gamely anyway.
Eli in the process of rolling his opponent (from Belfast) over by turning him with his arm/shoulder.
At one point, his buddy told Eli in a joking voice “gee you stink” …after the match he told Eli he was trying to make Eli laugh and lose his concentration. Eli said his buddy *almost* succeeded but Eli didn’t give in and kept his concentration, as you can see in the next photo.
Pinned! Notice the blur to the right of the ref?
That blur to the right of the ref is his hand, as he slaps the mat to indicate that Eli has pinned his opponent.
Next: Regionals. As long as Eli stays on his game, which we expect, he has a VERY good chance at repeating as Eastern Regional PTWL Champion. The most interesting thing that weekend will be to see who wins at 138 in the Western Region. Eli has three times beat the kid from Bath who is in that region, and that boy’s coach said the only matches he has lost have been to Eli. IF that boy wins Western Regionals…….. so we are eagerly, nervously, looking forward to the next two Saturdays! Eli lost States in the last 20 seconds last year, so we’ll see what he can do this year. No matter the outcome, he has done an outstanding job this year and we are proud!
One more warning: You may here wild shouting if/when he wins next weekend…stay tuned for more Proud Parent photos….
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WOWIE ZOWIE! When you’re a quilter, there are a couple of real “biggie” things that can happen. Getting in to one of the major shows (done that), winning an award at a big show (done that! Second Place at Houston, Honorable Mention at the NQA show), being published (done that, a lot fortunately), but up there with winning an award is being on the cover (still hoping) of a major magazine, or featured on the last page in what I think of as the Grand Finale page where most magazines profile one quilt. Guess what…… DONE THAT thanks to Jan Magee (editor) and company at The Quilt Life magazine, which is one of my favorite quilt magazines (along with Quilters Newsletter). My art quilt “Fields of Gold” made the final page!
