Wrestling begins, Eli still undefeated!
Monday, December 9th, 2013Have been insanely busy for the past two weeks or so with this and that, but I’ll start with the best first: Eli’s wrestling season has begun! A week ago the team attended a 6-team pre-season meet and WON despite some early-season wobbles by some team members. Eli is, for the first time, losing a bit of weight which is commonplace in wrestling. Fortunately, this is carefully monitored by the governing body and the school: you weight in a couple weeks before the season, you are limited to losing only a small percentage of your body weight, and you cannot lose it too fast (or you can’t wrestle), and total body fat percentage cannot go to low. So fear not, folks! Anyway, Eli is wrestling at 145 pound weight class.
![Eli begins getting ready mentally by pacing the sidelines. I get ready mentally by taking a "good juju" photo of him pacing.](https://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013.12.09.blog_.misc005.jpg)
Eli, back to camera, begins getting ready mentally by pacing the sidelines. I get ready mentally by taking a “good juju” photo of him pacing.
![Eli's (in red) first match. Notice the ref smacking the mat to indicate he has pinned his opponent and won.](https://www.sarahannsmith.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013.12.09.blog_.misc008.jpg)
Eli’s (in red) first match. Notice the ref smacking the mat to indicate he has pinned his opponent and won.
Then this weekend, while I was doing a fundraiser at the concessions stand at the high school (so the Cross Country and Track and Field teams can buy two EZ-Up tents), was the first official meet of the season. Eli wrestled both at his own weight class and up one, at 152-lbs. He had five matches. He won one by forfeit (no opponent in the weight class on the other team). Eli won three on points and one by a pin. The above are all pins. When you pin someone’s shoulders for a full second (which lasts a lot longer than you’d think, and especially if someone is wiggling their shoulders on and off the mat a lot), the match ends and you win. Otherwise there are three periods of two minutes each. You get various points for take downs, escapes, back points, and so on. If you win on points, you have wrestled all three full periods (with delays for nosebleeds, stalemates, throwing up –when someone puts a REALLY tight waist on, and so on).
Eli’s fifth and final match was against the kid from local rival Belfast, a town about 30 minutes north of Camden Hills. Said kid placed third at States last year. At the end of regulation (the third period) it was tied at 5-5. In DOUBLE OVERTIME ELI WON 9-5!!!!!! WOW! So he is still undefeated. We are looking forward to the season, tho I’ll admit Eli is already looking forward to eating as much as he wants once the season is over in March! Yes, I am an unabashedly Proud Mama! (And he’s Honor Roll, too!)