Wrestling Update

photos are courtesy of Carrie and Casey Gordon!

Sorry it has been so long since my last update. Our computer at home isn' t working so finding time to blog hasn't been easy. A lot has happened in wrestling since I last wrote. Tyler continues to wrestle the Junior Varsity 171 weight class. Last weekend we went to Kiowa for a tournament. He took third in his bracket. He lost to a kid from Kiowa, then he beat a kid from Grandview (pinned him) and then had a great match with a kid in a blue singlet. (I can't remember where he was from.) He wrestled really well. He improves with each match. Last night we had a double dual at home with Holyoke and Goodland. He didn't wrestle during the Holyoke dual, but had two matches with Goodland. His first match was with a Jr. (I don't remember his name) Tyler had to wrestle defensively most of the match. He ended up getting pinned. The last match of the night was Tyler vs. Riley O'Hara from Goodland. They have wrestled each other 4 times in the last two and a half years and Riley has won all of them by pinning Tyler. Tyler had a feeling he would have to wrestle Riley again but he wasn't afraid. It was one of Tyler's best matches ever! He went the distance with Riley - he kept up with him - and even was in control for part of the match. The improvement I saw in Tyler was amazing! He ended up losing 7-4, but I couldn't have been prouder of him. One of my favorite things about Tyler is that he has so much self confidence. I was watching him warm up before his match and every now and then we would make eye contact. I kept trying to send him the message that he could do it. It would have been so easy for him to go out on that mat knowing that he didn't have a chance to beat Riley, but he didn't. He walked out onto that mat with so much confidence - and it worked! He told me after his match that if he'd had one more minute, he believes he would have won.

I guess that the feeling I had after that match is what draws people to wrestling. He has worked so hard this season. The practices are brutal, keeping his weight consistent has been a challenge, and getting up to travel to tournaments before the sun comes up has been hard, but he's done it all and he's starting to see the rewards. He has a poster on his wall that says "Once you have wrestled, everything else in life is easy." He and I both believe that. Wrestling has been so good for him. I can't even begin to describe how proud of him I am!

P.S. I think they should make a poster like that for me: "Once you've raised a wrestler, everything else in life is easy!" ;-)

So far Ryan is still promising me that he is going to play basketball. ...we'll see how that goes!