Riley's wrestling mentor and coach, in his speech at senior night, quoted Friedrich Nietzsche, "The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either."
Riley has been wrestling since kindergarten. You can read about my first wrestling tournament I attended with my kids here. It was quite the experience for me and where I first learned that if someone is shouting for the other kid loudly next to me, I join the competition trying to get my voice loud enough so my kid can hear someone cheering them on. After 13 years, my behavior hasn't changed. I REALLY try hard not to sit next to the fans of the other wrestler unless I am far, far away from the mat.
Riley had a tough state bracket this year. As in national champs were in his state bracket at his weight and 4A division. As in placed first nationally in greco and freestyle and was on the national team. That was the kid that was ranked #1 and the kid ranked number two went into double overtime with this kid...twice and took first in 126 lbs last year...as a freshman. The kid ranked third we had seen before. He can hang with the kid, but he has to be at his best to compete...one sloppy elbow and that kids gets a takedown and 3 back points. I asked Riley in January, are you sure you want to drop to 138s? He was wrestling 144s. He answered me, "Yes Mom, I want to wrestle the best."
Riley had a tough regionals. The #2 ranked kid and the #3 ranked kid were in our regionals. Riley was ranked #7 at the state level. Riley did well at regionals. He met up with the #3 ranked kid in the semi-finals and lost (that sloppy elbow for 5 points) 7-1. He took third. He wrestled excellently.
(It always makes me chuckle to myself when I see these kids on the podium, they look so docile...not so on the mat.)
Four wrestlers qualified for state from our team. Because we always have to travel so far for regionals, (this year we had to go 7 hours) and then turn right back around the following Wednesday for state the coaches decided to have the boys stay on the front range until state. They got special permission to practice at UNC for the week and even met the national champion at 141 from UNC, Andrew Alirez.
Side note, while Riley was getting ready for state I was hustling to get the state sweatshirts for the boys and girls completed. I think they turned out pretty cool if you ask me. (Thanks Mom for helping me figure out that flag).
(I see the N is coming off in the Demon...I want to get my iron out and iron it right back on)
Riley's bracket was tough. He was bracketed to come up against the #1 kid, who he has never wrestled, in round 2. I asked him if he wanted to know his seeding. He told me, "No mom. I just want to wrestle." I left it at that with Riley, and instead notified his coach who told me, "He'll be okay. He'll just have to wrestle perfect." And then, when he realized who I was talking about he said, "Oh shit, you mean the kid from Mead." Yep, that 's who I meant.
State is a long tournament, a big tournament. It's a little overwhelming.
Here in Colorado they run it over a period of three days and all divisions compete...not against each other (16 man brackets for one division...I think it would be more fun to combine them all and run a 64 man bracket. They essentially are doing that anyway.) You warm up beneath the stadium in a tunnel.
I didn't take that picture but I'm not above stealing pictures from my friend's facebook page...Thanks Jeremy (I stole a few from you).
My parents flew up from Washington to watch, along with Kenzie and Ben who flew in from Utah. That is the one fun thing about state, we have a family tradition to meet there if possible.
Riley's first match was fun. Not really for us, but he said it was fun for him (glad you felt that way Riley...put us through a little less stress and get a big lead). For us it was a close match where Riley only won by 2. For Riley, he said he knew he would win the whole time but he was just wrestling tight....meaning expending a lot more energy than necessary because he was tense.
As expected, he met the #1 seed in his second match. As expected the kid was excellent. As expected Riley did his best to not get pinned...which he managed. The wrestler teched Riley (25-10 might have been the highest scoring match) with a little under a minute left in the third. Riley gave his best.
Coming back mentally from a loss like that is not easy. Riley went into the consolation bracket. His next kid was a scrappy wrestler from Lewis Palmer and this is where, somehow, I managed to be sitting right next to the fans for the other wrestler and, not going to lie, ended up having a shouting competition with them. At one point, I even found myself scooting closer to them (there was a seat between us at first) so they could understand Riley was not going away. I know, ridiculous of me. It was a close match and a blood round which means that the loser goes home. It was close until the 3rd period when Riley went for a double leg and the kid sprawled sending Riley's head straight into the mat with both kids' weight on it. When Riley slowly rose you could see he was not with it and the other wrestler went for the takedown with no defense from Riley and the refs awarded the two points before stopping the match for injury time giving Lewis Palmer the lead. I just couldn't believe the refs didn't stop the match before rewarding the points (I've seen them stop a pin for blood time). I have the video and Riley was clearly out of it. Apparently everyone, including my son in Utah watching on flowrestling, could hear me shouting..."He's hurt!" Which my children changed and exaggerated to "He's hurt...my baby, he's hurt." I'm laughing as I type this. I may have sounded like that. But just so you know, we had the Lewis Palmer fans sandwiched and I learned my kids and husband participated in the shouting match too. Imagine being sandwiched between my family! Anyway, after Riley had his bell rung a little, it was like his body went into muscle memory mode and he scored 6 points in the last 30 seconds giving Riley the win.
You can tell from those pictures Riley is still a little out of it.
We knew that Riley's next match would be tough. It was the final blood round to place. So again, loser out (we were left with the top 8 wrestlers at this point who were all VERY GOOD). It was against another senior that hadn't been wrestling the season all that long, telling us that he had come back from an injury. It was a senior from the same high school that Andrew Alirez's (you know the 141 national champion we referenced earlier from UNC) brother wrestled for and Andrew Alirez helped coach. It was a senior that Ben scouted in prior videos who had a wicked single leg from both sides....and a kid that the #3 had to go into double overtime with to win. Riley was picked to win so I was optimistic. Maybe he just had a really good match against the #3 kid.
Only Riley didn't win. And it was all over. And there were tears. Not going to lie, there were tears from my eyes. That was the last match I would ever get to watch Riley wrestle. How could it all come to a close so abruptly. And, after all the time spent, the practices, traveling, tournaments, how could Riley not place? And the end of his wrestling season meant so much more than the end of wrestling, what it really signaled was the end of his time with me traveling and wrestling and at home. How do I deal with my fourth kid leaving? And what will I do when I have no more wrestlers to watch? I am still having my own wrestle with that in my head.
I had some conversations back and forth with the guy that ranks the wrestlers at the state level over Riley's record and seeding. We had some issues with a disqualification that Riley had at the beginning of the season where he kneed a kid at the end of a match (did I not write about that? Well, that's a blog for another day) and after 8 matches where he had won 7 of them and so his loss record (because of the dq) wasn't quite accurate. Anyway, this man, Tim, emailed me and asked me how Riley felt. I responded, "He has a lot of mixed emotions. Hard to end a senior year like that...he would have loved to place, but he said he wanted to wrestle the best kids and I think he definitely saw some of these kids...Otto Black, wow! His bracket was full of excellent wrestlers and you can't begrudge anyone that. He has a bright future academically so it is just on to new things. Wrestling will give him the capacity to deal with tough things in life which is what we always wanted from having our kids participate. So goal accomplished."
Maybe I can change Nietzsche's quote a little to suit wrestling better..."The end of wrestling is not its goal; but nonetheless, had wrestling not reached its end it would not have reached its goal (of pushing through difficult things and becoming stronger) either."
Even though I am tired of traveling so much and tired from the way my heart races when a match is close or stressful, I love wrestling. I love what it has given my family. One more wrestler done. Man, I'll miss watching this kid wrestle. I'm so grateful to my wrestling family...the coaches, the parents, the kids....through the years. So glad I don't have to leave that behind quite yet. Now, back to work. Headed to the front range next week for Jake to compete.
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