Little Apple Classic-fifth tournament of the year 2019

I am going to be honest here, I was a little nervous entering Andrew in this tournament because it is a bigger one than we normally do. Sometimes bigger = kick ass competition, and while we are getting closer to being able to handle that kind of competition, we aren't quite there yet.  I feel like Andrew is still in the confidence building stage of wrestling, even though he has wrestled for three years now.  This is really the first year that things are clicking and he is starting to get it.  If you want to see how our other tournaments have gone, click here for the first, here for the second, here for the third, and here for the fourth.   

We got there super early and one of our wrestling ladies had spread out and saved a TON of space.  We had so much room to spread out and it was SUPER nice!  They boys all congregated at the top with their game systems.

The very first match was with a teammate that I never have met.  I guess he usually wrestles in the 61 lb class.  They went and warmed up together and then hit the mat.  Andrew started off strong, but gave up :( After the match, the two talked and his teammate told him exactly what he did wrong, which I thought was super cute!

He worked hard to get out of every half his teammate put him in, so that makes me happy.  We have been working on half defense and I think it is showing!

Second match was the kiddo that was sick from last weekend.  As usual, he pinned andrew rather quickly, but andrew didn't give up and that is my main bone to pick with him.  Work hard and loose, I don't care.  Go out there and give up = mommy is not happy.  The kiddo's parents apologized to me for last weekend.  I told them that I knew their kiddo was sick and that there is nothing you can do about it.  Apparently he had hurt himself at another tournament and then was scared to wrestle and worked himself up so badly that he got sick to his stomach.  I told them to tell him not to be afraid of andrew ever :)  Maybe someday, but not right now LOL!!!!!

Third match I broke down into several videos.  I had looked at this kid's record just because we had never seen him previously.  He was 0-4 meaning he has just started his wrestling career.  My kid's record is pretty bad too, but I knew that Andrew had a chance with this kid and i was excited for them to meet.  Here is period 1.  It's kind of funny listening to the coaches try to get andrew to shoot.

After a little bit of dancing, there was some confusion as there was 2 seconds left.  Finally, they got through the first period and into the second.  Our coach deferred and their coach put their kiddo down.  I think their coach was hoping the little guy could get up and get some points since it was still 0-0.  

Andrew got his first PIN!!!!!!  He actually tried and mostly executed a half!!!!!  After a brief chat with his wonderful coaches Justin and Roger, he got a big hug from me.   It took a while to get him to stop smiling.  Here is the post hand raise and shaking the hand of the other coach :)

The last match was a no show, but I knew that was going to happen as the kid had scratched all day.  It was a shame because Andrew had beaten the kid previously, so it would have been a good match.  Andrew ended up with a third place with one win and one FF.  

I really hope this boosts his confidence and we can end on a good note at our final tournament next weekend.  Again, I saw good things in every win and lose and I am excited for the future!