"A mind once stretched by a new idea can never regain its original dimensions." ~Oliver Wendall Holmes

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Monday, November 09, 2009

1st place!

Avery competed in his first wrestling tournament of the season this weekend. It wasnt actually the first tournament, it was just the first one that he's competed in because he's had pink eye most of the season. He is wrestling the 125 weight class this year. He weighs in at around 121 right now, but started the season at 127. He lost weight just from training, not purposefully trying to cut weight.
The picture above shows Avery in his first match of Friday nights tournament. I think this picture is cool because I snapped it just as the ref blew his whistle and you can see that Avery was quicker than his opponent off the line to start. He won this match easily. The kid he is wrestling is a first year wrestler and one of my students. The boy is very antsy in class and I was the one who recommended wrestling to his parents as a possible outlet for some of his energy. So when this tournament come along, I told the boy to come and get me when it was time for him to wrestle and that I would cheer him on. Then I went out there and saw that he was wrestling against Avery. I told him that I'd have to cheer him on next time. :)
Avery wrestled a couple more matches with some more experienced wrestlers and had some really good matches. The second match, he was behind in points throughout the entire match and then in the last 10 seconds earned 3 points to win. In his third match, he fought hard the entire way through and was winning throughout the entire match, but not by much. Then in the third round, fatigue overcame his opponent and he won with a pin.
In the championship round on Saturday morning, he wrestled against a kid that he had already beaten (but almost lost to) in the second round. It was a tough match and Avery was losing for most of it. Then at some point, the other kid was on top of Avery trying to take him down and as Avery was trying to get out from under him, he accidentally elbowed him in the mouth. The kid's front tooth went through his bottom lip and there was a lengthy time out while the coaches and refs worked to get the kid patched up. They even had to clean some blood off of Avery's back. After that, the kid came back pretty strong and pulled out some more points, but Avery hung in there until the end and was able to tie it up. The match went into overtime, where Avery won with the first take down.
He was pretty proud of himself. He fought hard in every match and often it was just the fact that he stuck it out to the end and kept fighting that allowed him to win. I just wish another kid didnt have to have gotten hurt in the process, but that's just part of the sport.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tell Avery we said congratulations!! Thats so awsome!!

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