Dec. 15, 2008
Sorry for the delayed blog wrestling fans, we had a very long day of traveling from Oregon today and didn't get into Columbia until about 5pm. The Tigers had a great weekend on the Left Coast and went 4-0 as a team.
On Saturday, we took it to Cal State Bakersfield at 9am, Cal State Fullerton at 11am, and Cal Poly at 1pm. The day was full of excitement, as all three teams came fired up to take us out. Bakersfield wrestled their good old fashion "in your face" style but they didn't bring enough to the table to overcome the Tigers. Many of our guys stepped up, especially senior and team captain Raymond Jordan. Against Bakersfield, Jordan got his first of three pins on the weekend. Raymond is a force to be reckoned with, and will not be stopped this year. We can see it in his training, in his attitude, and in his performances.
Fullerton didn't put up as much of a fight, and we even turned it up a notch against them. We truly dominated this match and we wrestled very well as a team. We pushed the pace so hard in the majority of our matches that we were able to break most of our opponents, and even score bonus points in a match or two. As noted before, Raymond Jordan stuck his opponent, to score six points for the Tigers. Senior Marcus Hoehn, who is now ranked dangerously close to the top 12 in the nation, also wrestled a hard fought battle that gave the Tigers bonus points.
Marcus was also the star in the Cal Poly dual, as he took his top 20 ranked wrestler out with a score of 8-3. Hoehn scored four or five takedowns throughout the match, and didn't let up at all the whole seven minutes. Marcus wrestled close matches with the top guys in the country last year but for some reason couldn't get many takedowns. He has had no problems of the sort this year, I swear it seems like he scores every time he touches a leg. So keep a close eye on this Tiger, he's on a mission this year.
The next day, we traveled to Oregon State and beat up the Beavers pretty bad. With all of the traveling we had to do, we did a little weight class bumping, by moving me up to 165, Marable to 174, and Raymond to 184. Troy Dolan, wrestled the best I have seen him wrestle yet this year, and has shown steady signs of improvement since day one. Troy wrestled a hard fought, high scoring match and found a way to win in the last minute when he was down a few points. Many people don't understand that being able to find a way to win at any cost is an intangible quality that cant be taught. Troy dug deep, and finished the match on top to get the "W" for the Tigers. We are all going to have to dig deep in two weeks as we travel to the Midlands in Chicago.
The Midlands is the biggest tournament of the year and can be closely compared to the NCAA tournament. There will be a very large brackets with so many ranked guys it wont even seem like it should be a mid season tournament. The tournament should be very exciting, and I encourage you all to take the road trip if at all possible. I am very excited, not only for myself to get to compete against the best in the nation, but also for our team. I may be biased when I say this, but I truly believe that we are underrated as of right now. Our lightweights are really stepping up, and the second half of our lineup seems to be near flawless, and keeps improving day by day.
Of course, it is the holidays, and we are all going to get a few days off to go home and spend with the family. I know I will get to go home for 5 or 6 days and then its back to the REAL WORLD, and back to the grind that we Tigers love so much. These few days "off" are a good thing right after the stressful week of finals and a long road trip to the West Coast. Luckily for me, I'll have one of my best training partners back home in Todd Porter so I won't miss a beat. I look forward to keeping you all updated next week. Sorry again for the delay, instead of the "Hotel Blues" we had the "Airport Blues" this weekend, haha!