Patriot Wrestling Tournament

 Tyler and Bryce competed in the Patriot Wrestling Tournament, Saturday, March 17th. We were pretty nervous about signing the boys up for a tournament, especially since Tyler had such a bad experience at the last one. But, we decided this would be the one where they would have the most number of people there to cheer them on and coach them. And we wanted them to have the experience of a tournament. We were up a little after 6:30 to be on the road before 7:00. We got to Centennial to get the kids weighed in. Bryce was 43.8 pounds and Tyler was 48.6. We managed to borrow one pair of wrestling shoes that they were able to share, and one singlet (that was already kind of small on Bryce) but they felt a lot more "official".

After the weigh in, we went to breakfast at Jason and Jen's house, all of the cousins got to have a breakfast feast and then we went back to the school to get the kids all warmed up.

Fortunately, all 4 of the cousin wrestlers were in different brackets so nobody had to wrestle each other. They grouped up 4-6 kids/bracket according to weight. When the individual brackets were called to a certain mat, they wrestled back to back to matches. We had assumed that because Bryce was at a lower weight, they would do his bracket first, but they had Tyler's group go first.

We quickly got the wrestling shoes off Bryce and onto Tyler (not an easy feat whatsoever!) Tyler was up first and he was all rearing to go. He got out to the middle of the mat in his stance and just waited. His first opponent was crying on the sideline because he didn't want to wrestle. We waited several minutes and when it became apparent that there was no way they were going to get that kid out there (dang! he would have been such a great first match for Tyler!!) they got another boy out for him to wrestle.

 Tyler was quick to shoot a double leg, he didn't take the kid down very effectively though and he heard the other kids coach yell "sprawl!" so Tyler stopped what he was doing mid-point and sprawled out on the floor. The other kid took the advantage and quickly took control of the match. Tyler was pinned. He held it together pretty well until he realized that he lost and then he started bawling.

With some hugs and convincing that he was doing a great job! He decided to try and wrestle again. This time he battled pretty tough in the beginning, but got taken down real hard on his shoulder and just wanted to be done after that. We were happy to see him try it again. We'll do a few more practices, but don't want to push him to do anything else. Because the first kid forfeited, Tyler was able to get third place and got a cool medal which he is quite proud of.

Bryce had a totally different experience.  For the first time, he found himself in the dominant position and didn't know what to do. He's so used to fighting defensively that it really surprised him (and us!) to have his opponent in a pin position. His first match was one that he lost because of inexperience. The kid was running away from him, he really could have and should have won! 

His next match was fun for us to watch. He had several take downs, had a warrior look on his face the entire match,  and ended up winning!

I was nervous for him going into the next round because the kid he was going against, pinned both of the other boys that Bryce wrestled quite handily. Bryce held his own. He fought really hard, did NOT get pinned and walked away with 3rd place!

It was important to Marc and I that we give our kids the exposure to as many sports as they wanted to try. It has been a good experience for all of us I think! I wish that practices weren't so far away. The boys have loved going to wrestling practice and it has been really great for Bryce to open up in a competitive way. I know that Bryce would want to do another tournament. We'll see what happens!