ONE, TWO, THREE, PINNED

On Saturday January 23, Madison hosted the Madison Wrestling Invitational. There were a total of 17 schools participating in JV and varsity matches. This was the smallest invitational they have ever had.  It was very exciting because this was the first tournament after Governor Brad Little’s announcement that there could be spectators present.  Little said that there could be 4 spectators for every participant, or up to 40% of the gym’s capacity.  This made the atmosphere of the tournament feel much more exciting.  Parents and friends cheered their wrestlers on as wrestlers took to the mats.

This was an unusual tournament because it was held totally on Saturday.  Normally this is a two day tournament, starting Friday and finishing up Saturday evening.  This made for a long day for a lot of the boys.  Some of them hand 5-6 matches to get to the end.  Wrestling started at 9:00 a.m. sharp–this was made possible by a zoom weight the night before.  Varsity was held in the main gym, and JV wrested in the two auxiliary gyms.  They wrestled the first two rounds before lunch, and went on to the semi finals starting around 1:00 in the afternoon.  This set the stage for the big show.  The finals for Varsity were held in the main gym on three mats.  Mat one featured first and second place, mat two featured third and fourth place, and mat three featured fifth and sixth palace.

It was very exciting to watch the finals.  They started at 98 pound and all the mats wrestled simultaneously each weight class all the way up to the heavyweight matches.  People and teams were cheering their wrestler on.  Roy Gundersen from Madison placed fifth in the 160 pound weight class, and Orion Stokes of Madison placed second in the 180 pound weight class. Orion said after the meet that “ his favorite part about the tournament was getting to see how far he has progressed this year and that it was fun to get to try the new moves that he has learned in practice.” There was a lot of energy in the room, the atmosphere was contagious.  If you weren’t there you missed a great time.

When the wrestling was complete and the winners were announced, Jerome took home the top spot with a first place trophy.  They were very excited.  Madison didn’t place as high as they would have liked but their head coach Aaron Peterson said, “The boys have been working hard this season,  the boys learn great life lessons for the sport.”