This picture doesn’t accurately represent just how big an entourage we had in Minnesota. We had more fans than wrestlers join us on the long journey to Minnesota (I believe the final number was 26!) and it looked like they had just as rewarding a trip as we did. Besides watching the great wrestling and experiencing the bitter cold, they also enjoyed a great Italian dinner on Friday, courtesy of Chuck Siefert. Thanks Chuck, and THANK YOU to our great families!

My apologies to our readers for the delay in this update. Saturday was a marathon of wrestling-related activities and of course, Sunday we made our way home.

Day 2 of The Clash started with a 6:30am shuttle to morning weigh-ins. The snow that had caused so much chaos the day before had stopped, but the morning temperature had dropped to –18. To be honest, the morning cold was probably a blessing, as it helped wake the wrestlers up in spite of fighting the four hour time difference

Our first dual was against La Quinta (CA) and starting at 160, we got off to a great start. We won by fall in the first five matches and La Quinta was never able to recover. We finished the match 66 – 9 and racked up 10 pins.

Our next dual was against Kaukauna (WI), one of the better teams from Wisconsin. We wrestled well, but simply ran into a better team and lost the dual 27 – 45. There were some tough individual matches, including a battle of state champions at 171. The Minnesota Sports Broadcast Network has video of that dual archived here.

Our last match of the day was also the most exciting. We wrestled Baylor (TN), the defending D2 state champions from Tennessee. Baylor jumped out to an early lead, but our wrestlers kept grinding away to close the gap. Going into the final match, we were tied at 27 when Patrick Sheehan sealed the deal for us with a pin to secure a 33 – 27 victory. The coaches were especially proud of a great team effort. Many of our key matches weren’t victories; rather they were wrestlers who hung tough even though they were overmatched. We often remind our wrestlers that win or lose, every match counts and every wrestler has a role to play. Our dual against Baylor was a great example of that point.

Throughout the tournament, everyone wrestled very well, but we did have a few notable individual performances. Kolu Buck (215) and Sani Fuimaono (285) both joined the prestigious “6-0 Club”, going undefeated in the tournament. Jordan Ng also wrestled extremely well, finishing 5-1.

Based on a respectable 3 – 3 record, we finished the tournament as runners-up in Division 7. As in our last trip in 2008, we learned a lot about ourselves as we matched up against top tier competition. Though we competed well against some very good teams, we still have a long way to go in improving our technique and reducing mistakes.

After our session was over, we spent the evening watching the championship brackets and witnessed some outstanding wrestling. Apple Valley (MN) (#2 in the country) was dominant, but Simley (MN) gave them a run and proved they are also among the best teams in the country. Perennial powers Montini Catholic (IL) and Wisconsin Rapids (WI) were also fun to watch. Final standings in The Clash VIII can be found here and there is a lot of great video on MSBN and Flowrestling.

When wrestling was done, we finished the day with a late night run to a local pizzeria and finally turned in around 1a. It was a long 18-hour day, but one I know we won’t soon forget.

Hearty Hawaiians test the air (brrrr), hit the mat

Ben Pherson also did a piece on us for the Jan 6 edition of Rochester’s Post-Bulletin. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to link to the original.

Day 1 of The Clash is in the books and it was a day of good, but frustrating, wrestling. We dropped two dual meets to very good teams, but can’t help be frustrated that both duals seemed to turn on a single match. Overall we wrestled well and were head to head with one of the top teams in Minnesota (Plainville-Elgin-Millville) and the defending Colorado state champions (Ponderosa). But if not for a couple of mistakes, each of the duals could have gone our way.

We finished the day with a win against Byron (MN), a local team that answered the call to come to the tournament just last night. As such, they had some holes in their lineup and a few wrestlers who couldn’t make weight on such short notice. In case you didn’t see yesterday’s post, a bad snow storm forced several teams to drop out of the tournament at the last minute. Byron and Zumbroda-Mazeppa both stepped up and entered the tournament with little preparation and helped make sure the brackets were balanced.

After grabbing a late lunch, the boys rested back at the hotel before their 7p study hall. We have an early start tomorrow so lights out will be at 9.

Overall, we’re proud of the effort we put forth today, but need to work on eliminating some of the mistakes we made. Tomorrow we’ll be in Pool 7 and looking forward to squaring off against three more tough teams. Our shuttle to weigh-ins leaves at 6:30am and our matches will be at 9:00a, 11:00a, and 1:00p.

Match Results

Loss to Plainville-Elgin-Millville (MN) 28 – 37

Loss to Ponderosa (CO) 31 – 39

Win over Byron (MN)

And of course, with this great workout facility at their disposal, it was only natural that the boys decided to spend their time playing foosball and video games.

A bunch of the other boys decided to take advantage of the day’s snow flurries and head outside to help clear the sidewalk of snow. When you live in a place that snows a lot, they call that a “chore”. When you come from Hawaii, they call that…well, we’re not exactly sure. But it was fun!

After grabbing lunch and returning to the hotel, the boys rested a bit then headed to the UCR sports complex for an afternoon practice session.

The snow storm has been the story of the day. We were expecting a warmer day, but instead the temps were in the low single digits and accompanied by horizontal snow. Schools and highways have been closing throughout the day and several schools were forced to withdraw from the tournament. That’s changed our schedule and draw. We are now wrestling in the morning session (first match at 9am central, 5am Hawaii) and will wrestle Plainville-Elgin-Millville instead of Simley. Updated brackets have been posted here.

The tournament was originally planning to webcast our second dual, but no word on whether that will still happen. I will tweet any updates (which will also show up on our home page or Facebook, if you follow me there).

The boys have settled in well (though a couple are fighting early symptoms of the flu). They’ve practiced well and are looking as ready as we can be for the level of competition we’ll face. We’re looking forward to finally being able to wrestle tomorrow.

The weather was a brisk 6, but it looks like it’ll be warming up a bit over the next couple of days. It’s supposed to snow a few inches this evening, but will be in the low teens tomorrow. Very cold by our standards but a lot better than the below-zero highs they’ve been having over the past week.

We took it easy for the rest of the day, heading out to the Pannekoeken restaurant for lunch after checking into the hotel. The boys rested after lunch, then went to the athletic complex for a quick workout. We grabbed sandwiches for dinner then returned to the hotel.

Tomorrow we’ll be going to the Rochester Athletic Club in the morning, then back to the hotel for study hall. The scrimmage we were trying to arrange for tomorrow afternoon fell through, so we’ll head back to the tournament venue for a late afternoon practice session.

It’s great to be back in Rochester and at The Clash. Besides the great hospitality, the community here is so supportive (and knowledgeable) about wrestling. The Post-Bulletin ran an article on us in today’s paper and the Minneapolis Star Tribune will be running an article on us on Friday (they’re featuring only two teams: Apple Valley, who is ranked #2 in the country, and us).

The boys are settling in nicely and we’re looking forward to the tournament!

We’re on the ground, trying to stay warm, and looking forward to some great wrestling. Check out all the updates from our trip by clicking here. You can also follow us on Twitter (@pwpcoach) for more random tidbits.

We are planning on broadcasting Punahou’s second round match live over the internet during the Clash (11 am Central time on January 8, 2010). Parents and fans who are not able to make the trip will be able to watch the second round dual (for free) on Minnesota Sports Broadcast Network: http://www.mnsportsnetwork.com/schedule.php

Also, fans will be able to track all match-by-match results on TrackWrestling.com (http://www.trackwrestling.com/tw/Login.jsp). Fans will get match scores at the conclusion of each match (instead of at the end of the dual). There are even other services (some of them have fees) for real-time (point-by-point scoring) and text message updates.

If you’re following us on twitter (pwpcoach), I’ll tweet any updates regarding our start time.

Mahalo Steve!