Wrestling Again (Q4!)

Wrestling started again with a meet in Staunton on Wednesday. Rodriguez rode took the bus with the team, but Brian was working at his new job.  

I drove up solo to stop at Home Depot in Waynesboro for a new deliveries box. I grabbed dinner to-go from Chic-Fil-A (coaches don't have to make weight!).

I arrived after weigh-ins, but before any of the action. It was a tri-meet: Us, Staunton, and Bath County.

The Bath County guys were interesting. Bath County is a rural county up in the mountains. There are more high school students in our local high schools than there are people there (and the county is one of the few without a single traffic light in VA!).  They were restarting a wrestling program after it had been banned/disbanded in their county for over a decade. Some of the coaches had no wrestling experience themselves, but did jiu-jitsu. The head coach said that his son started on the team, but quit! 

I remember we matched up okay against Bath County. We had more experience on average, while they had more athleticism on average. We were missing a couple wrestlers and one of our better newbies got caught in a throw. Our JV female wrestler got her back jacked up in an exhibition match, though. The trainer was a jacked, black guy in a sport kilt! Ha! He would've been fun to talk to if not for the fact he needed to make sure J was okay. 

Our match against Staunton was one-sided. We were better than before, but so were they. Between the forfeits and absences the score wasn't even close. Our JV guy got to get his first win of the season in an exhibition, though. He was thrilled, so that took some of the sting out.

Two random things I remember:

1. The gym had pictures posted of past championship teams. Rico and I could clearly pinpoint when the segregated high schools in Staunton were united through the photos. A sad bit of history, but nice they didn't try to hide it. 

2. The bus driver was super chatty and an amateur photographer. He came in to sit with the team and took a bunch of photos! Some might have even made it into the year book.