Wrestling at Mattoon

The boys definitely had a tough week of practice but I think in the end it worked out well for them. Egan walked out of the Mattoon Tournament with a 1st place finish in the 5 & 6 group and Bowen walked away with a 1st place finish in the 9 & 10 group. I also tried something new this weekend, I had Egan wrestle in the 7 & 8 group also. I think I have mentioned before how he sits for so long during the day that he gets a little bored so I thought if I kept him out on the mat longer, he might keep his mind on wrestling more. He went 0-3 in this group, losing two by decision and one by fall. I was happy that he worked harder in the three losses than he did in the three wins. That is one of the things I was hoping would happen by wrestling him up.

Egan's 5 & 6 group went very well. He pinned his first two opponents in under one minute combined. His third match didn't look very good but he pulled out a 9-5 decision. He was lucky that the last kid was a first year wrestler otherwise Egan would have been walking out with another second place finish. So he is currently 10-2 with two first place finishes and two second place finishes.

Bowen was the big surprise of the day!! He came out fired up and aggressive. His first match lasted 10 SECONDS!!! His second match against a kid from Cumberland went the distance but Bowen came close to getting a technical fall with a score of 16-2. So he went into his third match unbeaten and going up against one of the hometown kids (from Mattoon). He went after that kid fast and furious and pinned him in about 30 seconds. What was great about that match on a personal note was that it shut up the Mattoon crowd. I understand that it was their tournament but they were allowing way too many parents on the floor and there were too many people standing by the ring trying to 'coach' the Mattoon kid. In our youth wrestling federation you are supposed to have a coaches card to be on the floor and you are only allowed two coaches on the mat. So it was awesome that Bowen was able to whip the kid fast and not give them time to get loud and out of place. Several of our coaches came up to me and told me how they thought that Bowen was really coming along well with the wrestling. They saw an agressiveness that hasn't been there up until today. I was talking to Kim after the tournament and she said that Bowen had told her before any of his matches that he was tired of getting third place in the meets. Well, he really went out and did something about it!

Here is a clip of video of Bowen's 10 second match (don't blink! haha) Thanks to Myranda, my niece, for the filming of this match!! Thanks to Aunt Chris and Myranda for coming down to see the action.