Fargo 2010 Day 8 (Monday)

From Coach John Schmidtke

As the oldest coach on the staff, with no personal knowledge of popular music since CDs replaced cassettes (I still play LPs on my turntable), all I could think of while watching our talented and hard working Junior Greco Roman wrestlers lose close matches and exit the tournament unexpectedly, was the 1966 song by The Mamas and The Papas:

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day,
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be 

We had high expectations but low results at the Junior Greco Roman level, with the exception of Todd Murakawa (125) and Marcus Finau (189).  Todd is 4-0 after day one.  He’s wrestling confidently and explosively.  In his last match he hit miraculous arm throws at the end of both the first and the second periods to beat a talented kid who suddenly went from winning to counting lights in an unexpected second.  Marcus is 3-1, throwing around 189-pounders with powerful reverse gut wrenches that snatch them off the mat and send them heels-over-head (does head-over-heels really make any sense?) for 3 points a toss.

The early afternoon excitement was watching Cassidy Oshiro finish 6th in the nation at 105 as a Cadet.  The only difference between Cassidy and the wrestlers above him on the podium is experience.  Opposing coaches drool over his raw talent.  He celebrated his success by going for a training run around the NDSU campus while his opponents gorged on soft-serve low-fat ice milk drenched in chocolate sauce at the Dining Facility.  We’ll see whose post-tournament choice pays off best when the freestyle competition starts the day after tomorrow.

We experienced a scare when Sean Tachibana earned some frequent flyer miles and landed awkwardly as the unwilling participant in a five point belly-to-back suplex.  Its a classic Greco Roman technique that’s scary to have done to you but even scarier to watch.  He’ll rest his sore neck between now and the freestyle weigh-in.

Tomorrow, between Greco sessions at which they will be cheering on Todd and Marcus, everyone else from our two Greco teams will become freestylers, relearning the pleasures of leg attacks.  Meanwhile, the ladies continue their 2-a-day practices with Coaches K’u and Dany smiling as the moves become more fluid and automatic.