Maybe I led you to believe that it was easy, when it wasn’t.  Maybe I made you think my highlight started at the freethrow line, and not in the gym.  Maybe I made you think every shot I took was a game winner.  That my game was based on flash, and not fire. Maybe its my fault that you didn’t see that failure gave me strength, that my pain was my motivation.  Maybe I led you to believe that basketball was a God given gift, and not something I worked for… every… single… day of my life.  Maybe I destroyed the game… or maybe, you just making excuses.

- Michael Jordan

Today was our first day of competition and it was quite a roller coaster. We started with #1 Ranked St. Edward and didn’t wrestle particularly well. They were certainly a much better team than us, but we also wrestled poorly, perhaps overwhelmed by both the opponent and the stage. St. Ed beat us 65-6, with Zack Hernandez coming through for our only win.

St. Ed is a very solid team, top to bottom. They’re a physical team with extremely sound fundamentals, beating us with well executed, but fairly straightforward technique. They’ll be competing in the championship bracket tomorrow, along with Clovis (CA), Apple Valley (MN) and Brandon (FL) – it should be quite a war.

Our second match was very disappointing. We wrestled Hastings, a very good team from Minnesota, but wrestled even more poorly than against St. Ed. In several matches, we were wrestling well, then got in bad situations and gave up a pin. Mental errors, mostly, but also a reminder that we can never let up when wrestling a quality opponent. We lost to Hastings 45-23.

We challenged the boys to refocus and step up their intensity and in our final match of the day, against Arrowhead Union of Wisconsin, they really delivered. In spite of our two forfeits (120 and 220), we managed a 42-35 win that came down to the final matches. We were trailing 32-35 with two matches to go – freshmen Weston Kogachi (106) and Josh Rosen (114) – and both wrestlers stepped up big time. Weston dominated his opponent and finally secured a pin with only about 10 seconds left in the match. That gave us a 3 point lead going into the last match, and like Weston, Josh Rosen rose to the occasion and dominated his opponent 16-2.

More than the win, we’re happy we finished the day wrestling well. We were aggressive, cut down on our mistakes, and took advantage of our opponent’s mistakes. It was impressive how our freshmen really met their challenges head-on and several individuals are wrestling well. LJ, Bryan and Zack, who’s 3-0 with 3 pins, are having a very solid tournament so far.

Oh, and very important to our wrestlers – it snowed today.

Tomorrow, we’ll be in bracket 7 with Prior Lake (MN), Rapid City Central (SD), and Mitchell (SD). {updated — I had listed the wrong teams earlier}

We returned to the hotel for a quick shower, then boarded a chartered trolley for an afternoon tour of the surrounding area. As we headed east, the city of Rochester quickly gives way to wide expanses of farmland. We drove through the Whitewater River Valley, and stopped for a bit at the nature center there.

We continued our journey northeast, making a quick stop at Lark’s Toy Store, a large family-owned toy store that also features a hand-made carousel. After a few rides (and some home made fudge, for those wrestlers who could afford to eat), we headed towards the Mississippi river and over to the Wisconsin side to have lunch at Nelson’s Cheese Factory.

After lunch, the trolley took us back to the Minnesota side of the Mississippi, over to the town of Wabasha, where we visited the Eagle Center. We got to hear a lecture on the Bald Eagles indiginous to the area, then got to see some of the eagles up close.

On our way back to Rochester, we drove along the Mississippi and were able to see a couple dozen Bald Eagles in the wild.

The wrestlers were on their own for dinner, supervised by Mr. Beachey and Coach Arnie. Coach Oney and I went to the coaches’ dinner hosted by the tournament committee. The dinner speaker was 3x World Champion Lee Kemp and we got a great opportunity to talk to some of the other coaches in the tournament.

Bed check was at 10pm and we have a very early start tomorrow. We take a 6:30am shuttle for a 7:15 weigh-in. We’re scheduled to wrestle at 9:00a, 11:00a and 1:00p, with our first match of the tournament being against St. Edwards of Ohio, ranked #1 in the country by WIN Magazine. It’ll be as tough a battle as we’ve ever been in, but the boys look ready. Wish us luck!

After checking in at the hotel at about four, we headed to the University Center Field House for a light workout to “get the road off”. The team was weary, but the workout served its purpose and the boys left feeling a bit looser and relaxed. Dinner was at the Pannekoeken Family Restaurant, in what’s become a regular stop for the Punahou wrestling team.

This morning, we headed to John Marshall High School for a workout with their wrestling team. We had a great workout with Coach Brian Parlin’s team four years ago and today’s session was just as good. We got some good drilling and good live with a solid team.

After lunch, we visited the Rochester Ronald McDonald House to do a little community service. Over the years, the Rochester community has been very generous to us and we wanted to find a (small) way to show our appreciation. We took a short tour of their fantastic facility then helped decorate and pack the breakfast bags they provide to their families who need to take their breakfast on the go.

Dinner was again at the Pannekouken place and lights out at 10. We have an early start tomorrow, with an 8am practice. We’ll spend the afternoon with a tour of the Rochester area, then back to make sure everyone’s on weight. As we get closer to the tournament, the team is starting to look forward to the competition. We’ll have six dual meets over two days, all of them tough, and the boys are starting to get excited.

On Tuesday, December 13th the Punahou Intermediate wrestling team held a joint practice with the Washington Intermediate Eagle Wrestling club. Coached by Brett Kumabe c/o ’95 the Washington Eagles and Punahou Buff n Blue have collaborated on a number of successful projects in the past, and continued that success with a spirited and eventful afternoon.

Getting to Know Each Other

The day started off with warm-ups, stretching and getting to know each other. We learned all sorts of information about each other like where we are from and our favorite ice cream flavors, school subjects, and video games. We practiced our neutral position and spin drills with the help of varsity wrestlers Nicole Taniguchi c/o ’12, Brian Peralta c/o ’12, and L.J. Remillard c/o ’13. We had fun learning different moves and seeing different styles of wrestling.

Working on Basing Up

After a short water break and reviewing how to base up from the bottom position we moved on to every wrestlers favorite part of practice…..WRESTLING! We broke up into groups of three and banged heads (both figuratively and literally). This was the most enjoyable part of practice and the wrestlers got a lot out of it. We ended the day learning to walk like an elephant, crawl like a bear, and learning to play chess… Like a Wrestler!

Much Aloha to Coach Brett, Joey, Andrew and the entire Washington Intermediate Eagles Wrestling club for visiting Punahou and providing us a tremendous opportunity to share and advance the sport we love. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Washington Intermediate and wish everyone a happy holiday season!

Coach Mike

Under Overs

Double Leg Takedown!

Showing the boys how its done!

Battling for Position!

Collar Tie!

Lower your stances!

Wrestling is hard but fun. =)

Putting away mats at the end of the day

Please let me know your availability for the shifts below. I realize many of you may be traveling or have other obligations, but if you’re available, please sign up for at least one shift.

Note that we’ll need a larger number of wrestlers on Sunday afternoon, Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Also, if any wrestler has previously worked in the VPC, your help is especially appreciated.

Lunch will be provided to all wrestlers.

Shifts

The JV team had an even more frustrating performance, wrestling below their abilities on too many occasions.  They finished in 2nd, behind a very tough and loaded Kamehameha JV team.  We have a good  group of wrestlers who are willing to do the work, so we’re gonna have to continue pushing forward and hopefully get many of them to attend the off season training and continue to improve on their abilities.  We know we can be better in the future.

The boys and girls varsity continued to strive for their ultimate goals, and put themselves in position to finish strong.  Both qualified all possible weight classes (14 for the boys, and 10 for girls (we don’t have a 220 girl wrestler)) for the states this weekend.  Both teams were able to pull away from the rest of the teams over the course of the tournament and win the ILH Team Championships.  Though we know we still didn’t wrestle our best, which frankly excites us as we don’t need to truly peak until this weekend at states, we did have several key wrestlers work through their injuries and survive the weekend qualifying for states and with the potential to improve their health even slightly more through the week.  We expect to continue working hard this week and polishing up and improving our technique in certain positions, and know that there will be several teams pushing hard to finish on top this weekend, including us.

If at all possible, we’d love to see you either Friday and/or Saturday at the Blaisdell for the excitement of this tournament.
Thank you for all the continued support.

Intermediate and JV will be wrestling in the morning; Boys & Girls Varsity will start at 4:00pm.

Please note that parking will be extremely limited and car pooling is recommended.

Defeating Coast Guard, 37-6 in their first match of the day, then besting Little Three rival Williams, 28-7, in the semi-finals, before downing Plymouth St., 24-12, in the championship match, the Cardinals secured the title in the annual NEWA Duals, hosted by Bridgewater St., Sun., Jan. 23.  This is the 11th year of the Duals and first title for the Wesleyan, which was seeded second of the 14 teams in the event.  Last year, the Cardinals earned a third-place finish while the team’s previous best effort came in 2002 when Wesleyan hosted the Duals and finished second.

…

At 133 pounds, Maika Nagata ’13 (photo insert upper right) upped his dual record to 10-2 with three wins, including a major decison over his Williams rival, who was ranked sixth.  He also posted the team’s lone pin in the championship match, giving Wesleyan a 9-0 lead.  Nagata is ranked fourth regionally.

Read the entire recap of Wesleyan’s win at the 2010 NEWA Duals here.

Saturday once again found us hosting the Intermediate and JV round robin tournament, the last of the season.  Our boys and girls varsity teams did an excellent job of setting up the brackets and running the tables, and our younger wrestlers continued to show their development.  We can definitely see the progress of the 7th and 8th graders, and also of several of the JV’s as well.

This week Friday and Saturday the JV, Vars, and Girls will be competing in the ILH Dual Meet Tournament at Maryknoll.  Next weekend, yes Distraction Weekend, will be the ILH Championships (for all levels) at Kamehameha.  As always, we’d love to see you at any/all of these if you can make it.