Last weekend, twenty schools gathered for a wrestling tournament, hosted by the Plano High School Reapers. You gotta love the rural school mascots!

The WA team competed Friday night and fought hard through three rounds. It was a double elimination tournament, so the guys had to win at least two of their three matches Friday night in order to have a chance to wrestle the following day. Derek ended up winning two and losing one match, and was the only one from the team to advance to Saturday. His faithful teammate/friend came along to support him.

Jim and I assumed that the Saturday portion of the tournament would move quickly since there were just a portion of the wrestlers left after Friday’s elimination. With this assumption, the three younger kids came along to cheer for their brother.

As the hours ticked by, however, we realized we were quite wrong about the length of the tournament. It ended up going until 4:00. These kids are troupers, though. No complaining, despite spending their Saturday sitting on wooden bleachers.

It helped that the team had snacks for the day. Ruth periodically would walk across the gym to grab a Gatorade or yogurt from the cooler. We laughed at how confidently she walked among the muscly wrestlers. It’s what life with four big brothers will do to you.

Because of Derek’s one loss Friday night, he was wrestling for third place. In order to earn third, he had to win all three Saturday matches. The first two were early in the day, done by 10:30am. Then the long wait until the championship round:  a five hour wait. Finally, he took to the mat and…

eighteen seconds later the match was finished.

He took third place

and also won the tournament award for most pins in the least amount of time.