This will be our seventh year attending middle school wrestling:  first three years with Joshua (they could begin in 6th grade then) and now four more years with Eli (by which time they could begin in 5th grade).  With occasional wrestling breaking out in the living room since he was barely as tall as the dearly-departed dog-beast, Eli has had a good bit of time to learn.  And learn he has!  Last year, devoted readers may recall, the boy was Eastern Maine Regional Champion and came in a close second in the state.  This year, Eli’s hoping to do at least as well if not better!  He’s off to a good start…

Yesterday marked his first meet of the season (he had the stomach flu for the first meet).  He had three regular matches and one “exhibition” match.  He won four matches.  In the first period.  ALL by pins.  Two of the four in 12 seconds or less.  Ahem.  Glad I’m not facing him on a wrestling mat!

For his first match of the season, Eli (in red, on the right) faced a boy from Bath. He let the kid grab his ankle/leg at the start, so it took a moment to get his bearings and decide to dominate.

The meet was….erg…. in the Western Region.  The Pine Tree Wrestling League (to the dismay of many parents) has decided to expand the regular season meets across regional lines to give the boys more experience.  That is good.  Driving on twisty turny two lane snowy roads, well…not so much fun. It was a good two hours each way to Dirigo from our home!  At least the nasty weather ended early enough for the roads to be mostly plowed/cleared.

The boys moved out of bounds, came back to the center, and Eli went after the win. Here, he is pinning the kid--the aim is to win. The best win (in terms of points for the team) is a "win by fall" or "pin" where you get the opponent's shoulders on the mat. The ref is down on the mat to get a straight-on view to make sure both shoulders are down before the welcome (if you are the one doing the pinning, and not the one being pinned) slap on the mat to indicate pin! Match over! Opposing coach is now looking glumly resigned. Mama-Smile!

At Eli’s mid-weight-range the competition tends to fall into two groups:  really good—really competitive, and rank beginners.  When your kids are young or somewhat plumpish, it is disconcerting (to say the least, for moms, kids, coaches), to see some very muscular and skilled 7th or 8th grader walk onto the mat looking determined. For those who aren’t intimately familiar with wrestling:  kids are grouped by age (in this case 5th-8th, next will be high school) and by weight class.  In our league, it is (in pounds)  75, 82, 89, 96, 103, 110, 117, 124, 131, 138, 145, 155, 170, 190, 210, 240.  And yes, there really are middle school boys in the 210 and 240 range.  So a 131-pounder can be lean and strong or small and plumpish.  Guess who wins, especially with experience.

This dear boy in blue didn't stand a chance. Took all of ten seconds for Eli to grab him, get him to the mat, onto his shoulders, and the win called by the ref. In a RARE event, I managed to get the ref holding up Eli's hand for the win.

And an even more rare photo, Eli with dad (asst. coach) and True Bragg, a Maine State Champion in high school and head coach:

Eli and coaches (dad on left, sitting, and True on right, teammates behind)

When teams meet up, there are often “defaults” where only one team has a kid in a given weight class.  At regular season meets there will often be “exhibition” matches to give the kids more  opportunities to wrestle.  These are good for learning and bragging rights, but don’t count toward the kids season-end standings as they go into regionals and states.  Eli wrestled Spencer Vaughn from Dirigo again…. he wrestled him last year at states and pinned him.  This year, Spencer is a weight class heavier than Eli, but since he, too, made States, it means he is a good wrestler. General rule of thumb is that it is harder to wrestle someone heavier as they have more muscle.  But not always. And skill counts.

The Dirigo boy is arched up trying to keep his shoulder blades off the mat and avoid getting pinned. He did not succeed. Again, the refs need good knees to get up and down from being on the mat to see what body part is where!

Eli pinned him again!  This photo was moments before the match was “win by Fall” for Eli!  I must say, I DO like it when Eli wraps up the win promptly and it doesn’t come down to the final seconds of the final/third period!  Next on the blogging list:  painting the house and (get ready….) quilting…yes, I ‘ve actually done some quilting!  Now Eli needs the laptop for homework, so those posts must wait.

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!

Well…as I head out to the last wrestling meet of the season (Marshwood, a six-state all New England tournament in Portland, Maine), I thought I should get caught up and share LAST week’s results:   Eli placed second in his weight class –that’s all the kids in middle school wrestling in Class B schools (I think they “class” them by size, as larger schools would have a larger bunch of students and theoretically be tougher?).   The kid who beat him–Nate Boucher– is a two-time State Champ (and came in second last year in a 12-11 loss in the finals!), and is number 3 in all New England. I’ll add that the “middle” weight classes are the most competitive ones, with MANY really good young athletes.  Camden-Rockport had six boys in the finals, three of whom placed in the medals:  Eli, Chris Weiss (both got seconds) and Taylor Crosby (fourth).  Well done to them and to the entire team.

The customary congrats to the winner handshake--I love that the old courtesies are still observed in some places!

We are SO  proud of him:  Eli set himself a goal, he worked hard, he achieved it when he won Regionals and made it to States, and exceeded it by not only placing, but placing second!

The top four: Eli had beat all the others on the podium...way to go Eli!

Plus, he thinks now that he knows how Boucher wrestles, he can beat him if he wrestles smart.  Alas and fortunately, Boucher is an 8th grader, so they won’t meet again until high school.

The finals were closer than the 0 (Eli) – 6 (Boucher) score indicated as they started the third period.  There was a lot of back and forth… oh… in Middle school the kids wrestle three periods:  2 minutes, 1 minute, 1 minute. By the end of four minutes, they are totally exhausted it is so intense.

Boucher is on top (the place you want to be) in the 2nd round

Just a few moments later they are up and Eli is driving...

The third period opened with Eli looking grim but determined.  He had prevented a State Champion from pinning him for two full rounds, and was ready to go for it.

3rd round: Boucher is again on top, and Eli's legs are tucked, which means either he's in t rouble (easier to roll) OR he's getting ready to get up (hard to stand up with a squirming strong wrestler on your back)

REVERSAL! Eli gets out and swings around and takes control: Two points!

Eli said that Boucher seemed a bit stunned that Eli was able to get the reversal, but Boucher’s then 4-point lead was too much for Eli to make up in the final fifteen seconds.  Final score:  Boucher 6, Eli 2.  Well done to both wrestlers!   Eli, we are so proud of your determination, drive, courtesy, athletics and academics.  Way to go kiddo!

It has been a busy week, plus I was down and out with a miserable cold (that still lingers…not bad, just annoying in that it is keeping me from going full tilt).  The loveliest part of the week was the morning of our 27th anniversary.  I came down to make breakfast and get the tea kettle boiling, and found this:

Our anniversary dinner?  Spaghetti and meat sauce–carb loading, easy and fast–getting Eli and the rest of us packed and ready to head out the next day for more wrestling.

Then Saturday was State Wrestling tournament for Eli.   Fortunately, it was only an 80 minute drive away…some years it is held in the western part of the state (alternates year to year) and is 2-3 hours away…ugh!  Anyway, it was a challenging meet.  Eli may be in the most competitive weight class in the state—the top four kids (he was seeded 6th in the state) are all of a caliber that they could place in the top four in all-New-England tournaments.  In his first match, Eli went up against the kid who was seeded first, ended up being state champion in the weight class, and the State Tournament’s Outstanding Wrestler…that is for ALL weight classes, all middle school ages, voted by the coaches of the teams.  Here is Eli (in the red singler) doing his best to fight off the pin–none of us parents could figure out he could arch like that for so long and fight off such a strong opponent:

But he succumbed.  The 8th grade girl who beat him in his second match was good, and here they are grappling it out:

Our team didn’t fare so well, but they made it to states and tried their best.  So now, off to learn more in the coming year, come back next year (alas, all but the girl in Eli’s weight class will be back for another year in middle school!), and try again.  Good job to one and all.
Saturday morning, tho, was one of those mornings where EVERYTHING went wrong.  Discovered that Joshua’s amp had fallen over in the back of my car and cracked the inside back of the tailgate–my brand new beautiful car.  SOB.  It was really cold (high of 31) and the dog needed to stay in the garage as he would otherwise pee and poop in the house during the l ong day, so I took the plug-in radiator to the garage.  When I picked it up, the lip that I grabbed turned out to be a pull out handle, so the whole thing slipped and damaged the base/wheel.  Then the electric kettle I use about five times a day decided to die.  Then the older one was being a typical uncooperative teen and arguing, etc.  I had a meltdown before 8 a.m.  NOT a fun way to start the day.  Fortunately, despite the wrestling team losses, the rest of the day wasn’t awful.  So Sunday I read another Stephanie Plum mystery and hoped my cold would go away.  Soon.  More anon! This week can’t be worse, so it WILL be better.  And I WILL get prepped for teaching in Arizona in two (SHRIEK) weeks….

It has been a long time since I posted about our sons… somehow the vastness and sometimes-creepiness of the internet (and the fear of what may be lurking at the dark ends of cyberspace) have led me to be significantly more cautious about what I say and post.  But let’s face it…. kids and hubbies and family are what make life worth living.  They are also what constitutes “life happening” meaning that quilts don’t happen!  I wouldn’t give up either.  And, in these photos, the kids are basically unidentifiable, so here goes!

This season, our younger son’s second in wrestling, is proving to be a good one.  The first year on a wrestling team is often a learning year as the wrestlers figure out holds, what to do, what NOT to do, and learn to try to win (as opposed to wrestling “not to lose”).  This year, E. clearly is in the “going out to win” mode.

Last year, E. got pinned (and therefore lost) when a kid got him in what is called a double-chicken wing.  He achieved a goal this past meet:  he did it to another kid–see photo above!  So far this year, E. has had six matches with opponents (when the other team doesn’t have someone in the same weight class, he gets a technical win, but real ones are better).   He has pinned the opposing kid (which leads to more points for the team than winning by points alone) six out of six times.  In this past meet, he had four matches, won all four by pins, and won three of the four in the first period. E. ROCKS! Here’s how one of his matches went on a recent Saturday:

Shake hands first:

E. makes a move (he’s the one   on the top, with red stripes down the side and the headgear/ear protectors  falling off):

E. grapples, gets the kid in a near-pin, but not quite, so reconsiders and goes for a double-chicken wing (and don’t your shoulders hurt just looking at the poor kid on the bottom?)

…this is the classic…the losing kid is the one in the upside down, how-can-he-really-be-in-that-twisted-position:

To get a pin, BOTH of the opponent’s shoulder blades must be on the mat for one full second.  That means the ref ends up flat on the mat peering in unusual places and positions to make sure there is full contact for the full second.

PINNED!  Ref slams hand on mat, match is over, E WINS!  E ROCKS!  It is good *not* to be the one twisted up like a pretzel!