A quick note from district/regional wrestling

I spent Saturday at the district/regional wrestling meet in Castle Rock shooting three wrestlers from Ilwaco as they tried to advance to the state meet. You can see more pix and get more info on that at the Observer Sports Blog if you like. Here are a couple pix that I liked from the day:
Terry Elliott is cool to shoot because he goes through this active routine before he wrestles. However, prior to the start of the consolation rounds, which he was a part of, I found him relaxing along the gym wall.
Ikaika Thomas was the only wrestler of the three to advance to state by placing (the other two advanced as alternates). Here he is being congratulated by family and friends after winning his second round match, which put him in the finals and secured a trip to the state meet. What was perhaps the most impressive is that he won both of his first two matches by pinning his opponent in less than a minute. This of course would be noteworthy enough, except for the fact that he did so while fighting a flu bug.
Of course with every up there is a down, and in this case it was Rudy Alvarez, who lost his second and third round matches and missing a bid to the state tournament. He did however win his final match of the day and will be going to the meet as an alternate.

-DKM