Marshwood is *the* major regional tournament up here, and occurs at the end of the middle school wrestling season, this year the first weekend in April, a week after the Maine state tournament (in which Eli placed second!). Wrestlers from six states come up to Portland to the Civic Center to wrestle “half-mat” matches of 1-1-1 (minutes per round instead of 2-1-1). There are seventeen (!!!) matches going at once! The little kids wrestle first– kindergarten through fourth grades. Then 5/6 and 7/8 wrestle starting about midday. Unlike the regular season where you wrestle your weight class all season, at this meet you weigh in the night before, and they set up 8-person brackets who are closest in weight.
Eli's first match, photo taken from up in the stands. Here, the start of the first period.
Eli in red...grinding the kid on the bottom into the mat....ref's hand is down to touch them to let them know the period just ended.
Eli's second match: win by major decision (more than 8 points ahead--score was 12-0)--I actually got him with his hand raised! The hand goes up and down I almost NEVER get a photo
Eli made it to the finals by winning two before he lost any matches!!!!! and finished SECOND in his weight class! He won his first two matches handily, thereby securing a place in the championship round.
The bracket sheet heading in to the final round
There was a long break as consolation round (3rd / 4th place) matches were wrestled. Then warmups began inside the “cage”–the civic center is used for hockey so there are these tough plexi panels around the goal ends of the stadium.
Some of "our" boys milling around. From left to right (green arrows) Colt from the HAL (Hope Appleton Lincolnville) team, Eli, Ben from Camden-Rockport also, and Coach True.
In the finals, Eli wrestled a boy from Rhode Island who was a couple inches taller. I had thought based on what I saw that they were evenly matched in strength, but afterwards Eli said the other boy was definitely stronger, which makes Eli’s performance all the more amazing.
Most of the match looked like this: evenly matched, score at 0-0
At one point, it looked like this, but Eli wasn't in enough control long enough to get any points. Drat! In the background in red you can see hubby/asst. coach Paul, coach True, and behind them teammates Ben and Chris (who ended up being Champion in his weight class and then Grand Champion in the 4-weight-class wrestle-off among the champions--this meant Chris had been champion all four years of middle school---way to go Chris!).
Then, just before the last twenty seconds of the final round (when it looked like they would go into overtime for first place)….
Eli had been on top, but the other boy managed to get free. At this point it is 36 seconds left in round three (three red dots on the clock--the one on the right) and score is 0-0. About ten seconds later the other boy escaped/got a reversal and scored 2 points. Not enough time for Eli to score in the remaining 20 seconds, tho he tried mightily!
And the trophies are awarded, Eli heads to shake the hands of his opponents’ coaches as his opponent receives a hard-won trophy and goes to shake hands with Paul and True.
Eli goes to shake hands with the other coaches after receiving his trophy, and the boy who won gets his first place trophy.
WELL DONE, Eli! and Well DONE to all the wrestlers from our town who decided to go to Marshwood, whether they placed or not. What counts most is attitude, drive and determination. Hooray for these kids!
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