11/30/22 First Wrestling District Dual/Tri?

     It was a nerve-wracking day for sure, this past Wednesday.  Mijo was going to wrestle, possibly, for the first time this season.  He stayed out of the first tournament to let his ankle rest a bit more, it was a week right after the playoff football game, so it was good that he rested his body, plus going into Thanksgiving week just added more rest time.  It was kind of up to the competition, if they had heavyweights, and by some luck, they had two.

    A dual is a wrestling meet against another school and a tri is between three schools.  I am not sure whether to call it a tri since Travis showed up with about three boy wrestlers, not much different than last year.  McCallum had most of a team for both the boys and girls, so the competition was still good.  The night was also labeled the Senior/Parent's/Teacher's/Alumni Meet, and it was a packed auditorium.  The kids were told to invite a teacher, so there were plenty of teachers around, a lot of them seeing the sport for the first time.  We were actually sitting with some of the parent's we have befriended the past year and explaining what was going on along the way.

    One mom could not get herself to look at her daughter fighting and turned away and cried in what looked like a panic attack.  The daughter did fine for a new fighter, she lost to a more experienced girl, but she showed good balance and attacked with confidence.  The other parents were of my son's friend who is in band and after seeing the bigger boys said, "no way, our son is staying in band."  He had been going back and forth that he wanted to join the wrestling team, but then couldn't make time with all his band activities.

    I would say we won the majority of the fights between the different weight classes, though there is no clear 1st place 2nd place thing with these duals.  Mijo, for the record, had a great fight.  He came out strong, dominated the other kid and did not give him a chance to do anything offensively.  The match lasted roughly a minute, 20 seconds we waited for the ref to count the pin as a pin.  Mijo was on top of the kid so long, he turned and looked at us for a split second.

    I needed to see him moving about with some real competition to see that he still has the same intensity and drive he had last year.  My fear was that he was going to come out gingerly on his leg, afraid to hurt himself, but I did not notice any of that, he was a beast.