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Crimson Wrestlers, Managers, and Families-
Week Two Recap:
What a fun weekend! It’s so nice to be back to a normal schedule. The competition season kicked off on Friday night with duals vs. Coon Rapids and Zimmerman. The Coon Rapids Varsity dual saw the Crimson pick up wins from Seventh Grader Ethan Hong who earned a pin in his first career match at the high school, as well as wins from 8th grader Connor Peterson, Junior Max Johnson, and Senior Luis Haro. In the JV portion of the dual the Crimson won something like 9 of 11 matches wrestled – many of them won by guys in their first career wrestling match. Very exciting!
In the Zimmerman dual we took a one-point lead into heavyweight where Luis was able to pick up the fall to secure the first dual victory of the season. It was a true team victory with Freshman Evan Kilgard, Hong, Sophomore Cole Cyrzan, Connor Peterson, Max Johnson, Noah Fox, Grant Sandell, and Luis all getting in the win column. Fun way to start the season and an even better way to cap the night.
While dual meets can be fun, I didn’t realize how much I missed individual tournaments. Of course, it helps that Saturday was a pretty good day for Crimson wrestling. JV Champs included Evan Kilgard along with first year wrestlers Ayden Gunville and Chase Thein. On the Varsity side we had Connor, Max J., and Luis all in the finals with Max dropping a hard-fought battle vs. a highly ranked opponent and Connor and Luis reaching the top of the podium with nice wins over good wrestlers.
Almost as enjoyable as the on the mat successes was seeing the way our wrestlers supported and cheered on their teammates throughout the day. This team has a lot of talent – but also seems to have great character. That’s a great combination! Can’t wait to see it unfold.
Sunday was also a fun little get together at the Johnson household. Good bonding for the wrestlers and nice to see many of our parents there. Thanks Josh and Jessica for hosting the Season Kickoff Pot-Luck!
Now it’s time to take what we’ve learned and put forth the effort to improve in all facets. The goal is simple – be better every time we step on the mat. Now that we have a starting point, we will build upon it. It’s going to be a great season!
Here are the details you'll need for the week ahead.
Volunteer Request - Please Help!
Our biggest event of the high school season that we put on is fast approaching. As many know, we host a 16 Team Varsity and JV tournament this upcoming Saturday. We have many needs to pull this tournament off and make it a first-class tournament that offers our athletes a great experience as well as keeps other teams coming back. Because our current wrestlers will be wrestling in the event, we NEED our parents to step up and take this on. Your help would be greatly appreciated with the following:
Table Workers. We plan to set-up 7 mats and will need 2 table workers throughout the day. This means we’ll need 14 table workers at all times (14 from 9a – 1p and 14 more from 1p – 5p).
We will also need people to help with admissions throughout the morning (probably two tables (Door C and D).
We will need help in concessions.
We will need help with runners in the Coaches room.
We need some help with security throughout the day.
If you have significant wrestling knowledge, we will need help with the coordination of the JV portion of the tournament.
Thank you to everyone who has already signed up to help. Please consider signing up for one or more shift at the tournament.
Here is the link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/8050545adaa2ca5f85-mgwrestling
Practices:
Looking forward to utilizing the next four practices to build off of what we’ve learned thus far this season and be an even better version of Crimson wrestling come this weekend. The plan is as follows:
Monday, 12.6 – Practice 9a – 11a in the wrestling room.
Tuesday, 12.7 – Weight Room at 2:10p; Wrestling room at 3:10p.
Wednesday, 12.8 – Weight Room at 2:10p; Wrestling room at 3:10p.
Thursday, 12.9 – Wrestling room at 3p.
Meets and Tournaments:
Friday, 12.10 – Home dual vs. Park Center. Weigh-ins will be at 4p with the 9th grade team/JV beginning at 5p. Varsity will wrestle at 7p. This is also Youth night and hopefully we will have our posters completed for our wrestlers to sign autographs for our youth wrestlers.
Following the dual we will be setting up for Saturday’s tournament.
Saturday, 12.11 – Maple Grove Tournament. Wrestlers need to be at Maple Grove Senior High at 6:45a for weigh-ins at 7a. Wrestling begins at 9a. JV wrestlers will likely get 3 matches while Varsity will be a double elimination tournament.
Upcoming 9th grade team Event:
Tuesday, 12.14 – Is our first meet for our 7th/8th/9th graders at Elk River for the Jamboree. Wrestlers will weigh-in at practice on Monday, 12.13 and compete in an individual format with many other teams in our 9th grade section. Wrestlers who have wrestled only Varsity to by this point will not attend this event. Wrestlers who have wrestled any JV prior to this event should plan to attend this 9th grade tournament.
Out of Town Trips:
This week we will also begin finalizing our list of wrestlers who plan to attend the two overnight trips. The Redwood River Riot is 12.17 (Varsity and 9th grade team) and 12.18 (Varsity and J.V.). The Redwood River Riot is an individual tournament for all Varsity and J.V. matches while the 9th grade team will wrestle in three team duals on Friday night.
We leave for the Eau Claire Tournament on 12.27, stay the night at the Metropolis Resort in Eau Claire, and then wrestle (Varsity and J.V.) on 12.28. We will leave early on the 29th, practice at the University of Eau Claire, and then head to the hotel for some fun. The Metropolis Resort has a water park on one side of the hotel and an Arcade/Go-Kart Track/Trampoline Park, etc. on the other side of the hotel – so 12.29 should be a lot of fun. On the 30th the Varsity will wrestle duals while all other wrestlers will wrestle an individual tournament.
We do ask wrestlers to contribute to a portion of the expenses for these trips as we take a coach bus, stay overnight at a hotel, provide a significant portion of each wrestler’s food while there, and stop to eat at a Pizza Ranch on the way home. It is $100 per trip or $150 total for the managers/wrestlers planning to attend both trips. We will also be handing out permission slips at practice early this week. The deadline for wrestlers to register for Redwood falls will be this Saturday. Please have permission slips and payment turned in to Coach Troy or Coach David at some point this week.
If you/your wrestler/manager would like to attend but finances will not allow please let me know and we’ll try to figure something out.
Although not necessary, parents/families are also encouraged to attend and support the team. The wrestlers love these tournaments – and it’s been my impression the parents enjoy them just as much.
The hotels we stay at are as follows:
Redwood - https://www.jackpotjunction.com/
Eau Claire - https://www.metropolisresort.com/
Awesome Maple Grove Wrestling Fan Gear:
If you missed out on the first two Gear orders but would like us to re-open the Maple Grove Wrestling store please let me know. We were not planning to re-open the store but will request a third ordering window if there is enough interest.
Mat Boss Video Access:
Many of you have noticed our awesome managers and parents are video-taping (as well as scoring) our matches. Coach Schorn is also ensuring the matches are uploaded and as accurate as possible. This opens up all kinds of cool possibilities for the team. The most basic of which is that each wrestler can watch their matches once they are uploaded. Watching back matches can be a great learning tool and is highly encouraged. This is how that is done:
Here is a video showing you how to gain access to your matches:
http://matbossapp.com/?page_id=10138#wrestler-login
Our team code is: NR64T1
Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.
Sports Engine and Future Communication:
Lastly please download the Sports Engine App and sign up to receive future communications. Parents and wrestlers can each sign up to receive future communications and schedule changes through the Sports Engine app by going to Crimson-Wrestling.com. If you have any challenges with this please text me your email address at 763-913-0601 and I’ll make sure you are added to the app portion. Please let me know if you have any questions with this as we will use this app for communications throughout the season.
Technique Video of the Week:
One area we identified as needing work is breaking our opponents down and keeping pressure on them to give us an opportunity to turn/pin our opponents. At this link there are a series of short videos the show many of the most common and effective breakdowns: https://www.kolat.com/breakdowns
Creating grinding Pressure from the Top position: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5MSjYd4C3A
Can’t wait to spend the next four days getting better and see everybody in action again this weekend! As always let me know if anybody has any questions.
Coach Troy
763-913-0601