Haven’t posted in a while - there hasn’t been a whole lot to post about. But I should finally updated Cpher’s wrestling season. Last time I was talking about Cpher’s exploits on the mat he had gone 4-1 at a Saturday tournament, losing his last match - and he probably should have won that.
It was ugly after that for a while. Very ugly.
1) Lost to East Lansing 9-5 - the guy didn’t try to do much but took advantage of Cpher’s mistakes to score points. The guy kept getting warnings for stalling BUT I guess the lesson learned is that losing a point for getting warned is a successful strategy.
2) Lost to Jackson by pin in the 2nd period in the 1st match of Leagues. Cpher had beat this guy before but was never really in this match - the guy had taken him down twice before he pinned Cpher.
3) Lost to East Lansing 3-1 in the 2nd (and last) match of Leagues. This match was much more even than the first since Cpher was more content to wait for his opportunity. The ending was disappointing; Cpher should have / could have gotten takedown points with 30 seconds left and didn’t (our coaches were not happy) but the guy was able to turn it around with 10 seconds left to get takedown points and win. Cpher admitted he was disappointed he didn’t get points and kind of gave up.
4) Lost to Grand Ledge by pin at Team Leagues. Thought the ref counted the pin very quickly; maybe quicker than anything I’ve seen this year. Match was significant in that the GL guy took advantage of Cpher having to lean into him becuase of Cpher’s height by pulling backwards and snapping Cpher down.
5) Lost to Brighton by pin at Districts. He was losing 8-5 in the 2nd before getting pinned. Brighton guy used same tactic as described above; took advantage of Cpher leaning.
So that’s a 6 match losing streak heading into what could be the last match of the year; the consolation round of Districts. But….because there are only 7 heavyweights (out of 13 teams) the match has a big upside - a win here means that Cpher is guaranteed to advance to Regionals. The opponent? The kid from Jackson. Cpher’s win in December was by pin after he was down 4-0; Cpher’s loss last week was after he was down 4-0.
So, it was not a real surprise I guess to find Cpher down 4-0 at the end of the 1st period. The guy had taken advantage of Cpher’s mistakes for two takedowns and Cpher was lucky to have the period end or he might have been pinned.
2nd period starts and it is different than the 1st…it is actually different than the last six matches…..Cpher is tied up with the guy and they are trying to trip each other to take their opponent down. This goes on for 20 seconds and Cpher is the one who gets the Jackson kid offbalance and down they go - Cpher is on top and he pins him! The kid is going to Regionals!
Cpher, because he won, got to wrestle for 3rd and lost to the Brighton kid 5-1. The Brighton kid got all of his points in the 2nd period with one takedown and then a near fall and then basically turtled in the 3rd period AND stalled enough to lose a point. But Cpher couldn’t get him out of that position and that was that.
