Fargo 2010 – Day 9

From Coach John Schmitdke:

Marcus Finau  All American from Hawaii at 189 pounds. 

That sounds good.  It should, Marcus battled to earn that title.  He worked hard in the practice room, taking on the adult coaches to train his body to handle the rigors of a two-day tournament filled with tough matches and little rest between each one. 

On Tuesday he continued his winning ways and advanced into pool play against wrestlers from Indiana and Illinois.  In pool play the wrestlers compete in a round robin to see who will vie for first, third, fifth, and seventh in the medal matches.  One wrestler in Marcus bracket already had too many losses to finish in the top three so the last three standing wrestled each other.  Marcus dominated Indiana but lost to a beast from Illinois.  The Indiana kid then pinned the Illinois kid leaving each man in the round robin with a 1  1 record.  When the head-to-head matches are even, they use criteria to decide the finish and Indiana, by virtue of his pin, had the most points.  He advanced to the finals while Marcus advanced to the Bronze medal match.

The Fargo Dome is really a pit, dug in the rich, black, prairie earth and capped with a rectangular arched roof.  Fargo Pit probably didn’t strike the city elders as moniker of choice; better to call it something it isn’t than to risk ridicule.  The floor of the pit is a football field  home of the North Dakota State University Bison who won many national championships when they played their games outdoors in the brutal cold and wind but now play without championship banners before warm and happy fans.

On the floor of the pit, which is the football field, are 23 mats.  Mat 1 sits on a 40′  platform on the 50-yard line, and the other 22 mats cover the rest of the field, 11 on each side.  Remember that the Hawaii State tournament only has 6 mats going.  The pit is 120 yards of wrestling mats  back of the end zone to back of the end zone.  Imagine sitting in Aloha Stadium at about the 20-yard marker on the mauka-ewa side (where the rowdy UH students get egged on by the cheer leaders).  That gives you an idea where in the pit the Bronze medal mat sits.  There, under the spotlights in the otherwise darkened arena, Marcus lost a very physical third-place match to a powerful wrestler from South Dakota.

Todd Murakawa, the only other Junior Greco Roman wrestler from Hawaii to make it to Day 2, started the morning session undefeated but lost a squeaker to an Idaho wrestler and the met a buzz saw from Florida to be eliminated with two losses, one win short of All American status.

Our other wrestlers focused on weight loss and technique during their two practices at the Bison Arena on the south side of the street, across from the Fargo Dome.

Day 10 starts the Cadet Freestyle tournament.  Coach Oney has the Cadets at the Dome for weigh ins as I write.