Okinawa Friendship Wrestling Tournament

Our Champion

Saturday, January 17, was the Okinawa Friendship Tournament held at Kadena High School.
It was a LONG day of wrestling: weigh-in's were before 8am and the activities didn't wind up until about 8:00PM.

Matt's weight class was round robin scoring. This means that every match wrestled earned points- different points for different things.
5 pts- win with a pin
3 pts- win by "teching" your opponent (scoring 6 more points then them in a match)
2 pts- win by decision (winning 2 of the 3 rounds)
1 pt- losing, but scoring points
0 pts- losing by a pin
At the end, the all wrestlers' points were tallied and the highest score wins.

Matt wrestled 3 matches. His first match he didn't win, but since he lost by decision, he earned 1 point.
Matt's second match was a tough one, but he pinned his opponent in the second round.For Matt's last match of the day he had to sit through over 5 hours of wrestling. We were beginning to think they had forgot the 180 weight class! The officials just wanted to keep all the final matches at the end of the day- so they sat around and waited.
Matt's coach told him he could possibly win the tournament if two things happened. One- if the wrestler currently in the lead lost, or won by anything other than pinning his opponent. And two, Matt had to win with a pin.

We watched the other 180 match while holding our breath. It was a good match, and the leading wrestler was unable to pin his opponent. So far, so good. Now all Matt had to do was win his match...with a pin. But no pressure!!
I was so nervous I could hardly hold the camera (and didn't even notice my flash was not going off- which is why the pictures are lousy!). Matt was able to flip his opponent over and put him on his back...
and held him for the pin!

Here is Matt and one proud Dad right after the match.Here is Matt with his "Champion 180 Pounds" award. He had to wear his "Wrestlers for Life" t-shirt Coach McNally (his 8th grade wrestling coach from Anacortes) gave him a few days before we moved.

To celebrate Matt's win, the three of us went to Chili's after the tournament. David wasn't with us- he was camping with the Boy Scouts at Torii Beach.