Superior wrestlers continue to shine on the mat

SUPERIOR – The Superior Bobcat wrestlers all performed well in the round robin matches at the Deer Lodge tournament Saturday, December 21.

Round robin tournaments are where the participants have to wrestle everyone in a weight class. According to Head Coach Charlie Crabb, there were five teams at the tournament.

Blaine Parkin, 98-pound class, had a small group of competitors at the tournament and was able to beat all of them. Crabb said there were two other wrestlers in the class apart from Parkin.

Anthony Parkin, 113-pound class, also had a small weight class. He wrestled twice and won both matches as well.

Bridger Lapierre, 138-pound class, had five other wrestlers in his class and went through three of his opponents. However, he was injured in the fourth match and had to drop out of the rest of the day’s competition.

The injury was not expected to pose any problems for Lapierre’s participation in future matches. At the time of the interview, it was estimated he would only need a couple days to recover.

“We won’t come back to practice until after Christmas,” said Crabb. “So, he’ll be fine by then.”

Crabb felt the team did well at the tournament. Though he said it was not the toughest tournament the team would face, the boys still performed well. The team was able to go up against some very good teams and even a couple they had not encountered yet.

The fourth member of the team, Tate Trudeau, had still not been cleared to wrestle and was unable to participate in the Deer Lodge tournament. Trudeau was injured at the start of the season and has been unable to participate in any of the matches so far.

“He should be ready again pretty soon,” said Crabb.

According to Crabb, the tournament did not have any real victory placement. He said the person who won all the matches in a given weight class could be considered first place, but there was no formal system in place.

“It’s kind of based on points,” said Crabb. “For every match you win you get a point, so whoever got the most points got first.”

Anthony and Blaine took equivalent to first place in their weight classes. Though he was unable to go out for his last two matches, Lapierre still had enough points at the end of the day to take third in his class.

Until the next match, Crabb will work with the team on the basics and all-around improvements.

“We’ll just do what we do,” said Crabb. “There’s always room for improvement, so we’ll just keep hammering away.”

The Bobcats will not have any more matches until after the new year. The wrestling team’s next matches will be at the Ronan Duals on Friday and Saturday, January 3 and 4, 2014.

In duals, teams are paired against each other and wrestle as a group, instead of one-on-one. Only the teams who win would advance to the next bracket of competition. Crabb said the Superior team would go into a mixer, where a group of kids from the same weight class are all put on the mat together to go against each other.

“There’ll be a lot of wrestling there,” said Crabb. “The kids will be tired after [the tournament].”

Crabb felt the matches would likely be tough ones. With A and AA schools in attendance, he was confident there would be good competition. However, he was confident the team could do well.