Wrestling Tournament

Jacob and Matthew have been practicing with the Sherwood youth wrestling team a couple of times a week. This is a low-key affair, and they are doing it primarily to stay in shape for other sports. Plus, you never know what might stick and what they might take too, so Julie and I feel strongly about exposing them to as many different sports and activities as is reasonably possible.

On Saturday there was an open youth wrestling tournament in Tualatin, and the coaches indicated that this was a good even for first-timers. Jacob and Matthew decided they wanted to enter, so we got over there around 7:30am for weigh-in and registration. Their first matches were at about 10am. The event was run very efficiently considering how many kids there were. It was set up as a double-elimination event, which was perfect since we didn't expect them to do very well and it would be over quickly in that case.

Jacob fought hard in his matches, but had a hard time getting any advantage on his opponents - Jacob is very strong but needs to work on his quickness. In his first match he held off his opponent for most of the match and was only down 2-0 near the end of the third round when he was finally pinned. He was pinned pretty quickly in his second match.

That's Jacob on the bottom. Unfortunately he spent most of his matches in this position, but he fought very hard and never gave up.

Matthew isn't as strong as Jacob but is more agile - his matches had more chasing, spinning, and athletics. In his first match he spent most of his time getting thrown down and was quickly behind 8-0, ultimately getting pinned. His second match was better - he lost on points but score three himself, getting a take-down and escape.

The boys are not sure if they'll try another tournament, but they will definitely continue to practice and work on their technique.