Viking Smash

Well, it's too bloody cold outside to even think of putting my hand on a rock. The thought of it only brings to mind A Christmas Story when they dare "what's-his-face" to stick his tongue to the pole. All i can see is my hands sticking to the bare rocks, and when i try to pull away my calluses pull off my fingers. Just a nasty and painful thought. So i guess this makes it a good time to spend in the gym w/ my wrestlers.

So, this weekend is a team tournament called the Viking Smash. It includes all of the teams from our region (region 2 A/AA) except 1. This is a great thing because we get to see all of our competition other than that team for the regional tournament. Well tonight we wrestled 4 of our 9 total duals. We didn't come away a winner YET. BUT WE ARE SOOOOOO CLOSE. We lost the first dual tonight pretty bad (as expected against a team with every weight class full), but then the second dual was against Philip-Barbour (whom we almost beat the first dual of the year) and we lost 18-30. This seems like a lot, but it really is just one match going the other way, plus two of our normal starters were out of the line-up for one reason or another. Then we wrestled another team and lost to them, but not too badly. And we finished up tonight with Lincoln. This was a heated dual, all three matches that actually were wrestled. It seemed they only had lower weights while we only had the upper. But we did meet them on the mat at 145, 152, and 103. It turned out that the team that won 2 of the 3 would win the dual meet (not as straight forward as you would think) But it came down to our 103 pounder who wrestled his heart out and almost pinned his guy on two instances, but ended up getting caught and stuck. Bringing the final of this match to 30-42, another 12-point loss.

Even thought the team did not win big tonight, a few of my guys individually kicked some ass. At 103 we got a lad with fire in his eyes (finally) and is gonna kick some ass tomorrow, and hopefully still come away with 3rd place. At 152, John Ross is a pinnin' machine going 3-1 tonight, and finally getting a winning streak going. In the upper weights we had mixed results, but everyone came away with at least 2 wins i believe (including forfeits).

As for tomorrow, we have 5 duals to wrestle. And good news....when we wrestle South we WILL win (so long as everyone makes weight tomorrow) This will be Moorefield's first victory on a wrestling mat in 42 years. That will be a nice change of scenery. Other than South we have a very tough line-up: Keyser, Petersburg, Frankfort (who we can stay within 18 points of) Berkley Springs, and someone else who's name is alluding me at the moment.

On a side note from the kids, evidentially watching me coach is almost as entertaining as the matches themselves. I know i get into it, and often am standing, but I guess i bounce on my chair, dance, i know i yell cause i'm hoarse, and do everything else short of sing to them. Hopefully someone caught it on tape so i can post it for all of us to laugh at.

I will be sure to post again tomorrow to fill you in on the good news, as for now i must return to my homework.

It's an "Eye of the Tiger" kinda night.