St. Christopher's School Wrestling

Now that two out of our three regular season home events are done, I can relax a little bit and focus on coaching again. Coach Kiefer asked me to run last weekend's Red Storm Duals, while trying to do a live web cast of all of our matches. Fortunately St. Christopher's Athletic Director, Paul Padalino, helped me out and ran the head table so I could focus on the web cast. It was interesting to watch the team wrestle from a different side of the mat. When you are on the team bench, you don't always get the whole perspective of what is going on. From my little table across the mat, I could see much more going on than when I sit in the corner. I noticed a few things throughout the Red Storm Duals.

We looked rather sluggish in the first round against South County. SC was a very scrappy team and we looked fairly lethargic at times. Perhaps because it was the first match of the day or we took the Stallions lightly, we made them look better than they were. I'm not sure if we got a great warm up before the first match, but fortunately St. Chris came out on top. And that trend continued through the day. We looked better and better the deeper the tournament went.

The other coaches watched the B Pool teams to see who we were going to wrestle in our final match. The B Pool featured Liberty Christian, Cape Henry, and Conestoga, PA. Cape Henry had a ton of kids out of the line up due to an outbreak of ringworm and really wasn't a factor. Conestoga dominated the B Pool, which worried our coaches. Figuring the team was in for a tough match, the coaches pulled the wrestlers up to the wrestling room for a thorough warm up before the Conestoga match. It paid off; the Conestoga match was the most aggressive and intense the team has wrestled collectively all season. All fourteen wrestlers poured their heart and souls into the match against the Pioneers and kicked the snot out of them to take home the Red Storm Duals title. Conestoga was never able to get things going after they won the first match of the dual; our intensity and focus began a whirlwind of action from takedown to nearfall to pin. It was a great match to watch as a spectator.

I hope this trend continues tonight when we travel across town to take on Prep League rival Collegiate. There is something special about wrestling rivals; you always want to get a leg up on your rivals. We need to go out and show Collegiate why we're the best wrestling team- public or private in Richmond. The action kicks off at 7 PM tonight. I hope to see you there. I will be back on the bench where I feel most comfortable.