Bryce and Take Z placed first to lead a contingent of nine ASIJ students at the Azabu Ward 2021 Year End International Open Wrestling Tournament held Tuesday, December 28 at the Temple Annex of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gabe and Shawn took second, and Dylan T's third rounded out the placewinners for ASIJ High School. ASIJ Middle School's Serena placed first, and Charly and Kaori (listed as ASIJ middle school students in press reports) took home a silver and bronze, respectively. The community wrestling tournament was only open to dependents of people working at US military bases in Japan or students at international schools. Because the event was held using best practices from US and Japanese high schools (rather than the unique rules and unusually conservative restrictions currently in place for KPASS and DODEA-Pacific wrestling competitions), pent up demand saw wrestlers flock together from 10 different schools, from places as far flung as Camp Foster and Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, in order to compete "new-normally" with each other like their Japanese and US peers. While the COVID-19 measures were standard for current high school wrestling outside of KPASS and DODEA, the tournament featured several special aspects, including a girls bracket, middle school brackets, "lost year" (class of 2021) participants, the ability to challenge calls using video replay, and overtime instead of criteria to break ties. The nine brackets were all variations of round robin wrestling, where you wrestle all three or four of the others in the bracket. The 6-person brackets were divided into 2 pools of 3 each. Those pools did a round robin to determine 1st - 3rd in the pool. Then 1st in Pool A went against 1st in Pool B for the championship, the #2s wrestled for 3rd, and #3 in each pool wrestled for 5th. In the first match of the tournament, Take faced an old nemesis from St. Mary's. The highly anticipated matchup was almost anticlimactic, though, as Take methodically dismantled the nemesis-no-more opponent for a 10-0 tech fall in the first period. The other person in his pool of the 6-person 145 bracket had traveled all the way from Okinawa for the opportunity to wrestle someone new. Take welcomed him to Tokyo by pinning him in a little over a minute. Having placed 1st in his pool, he then faced the 1st place of the other pool, an experienced folkstyle (see Freestyle Wrestling Primer post on 11/26) wrestler who had moved from the US to Yokota with his family over the summer. For freestyle wrestlers, funky folkstyle foes can be a challenge. Not in this case, though, as Take tech'ed him 12-2 in less than 2 minutes to take the title at 145. At 129, reining Far East champ Bryce faced Christian Academy in Japan's senior captain in his first match. Bryce ensured the captain went down with his ship by means of a 10-0, total domination tech fall. He didn't let up on a practice partner from ASIJ, scoring an 11-0 tech fall win in his second match. A Kinnick tough guy was all that stood in the way of claiming another tournament championship. Well, Bryce made him sit down, scoring again and again until the ref stopped the match at 10-0. Outscoring three experienced opponents by a combined 31-0 was probably the most dominating individual performance of the tournament. Going against a Far East #2 in his first match at 115, Gabe scored on him and kept it close for a while until the experienced St. Mary's wrestler pulled away for a 12-2 tech fall. Running into a Kinnick Red Devil who was a little heavy for the weight class in his next match, Gabe fought the Red Devil tooth and nail in an exciting nail biter that ended with the Mustang scratching out a 4-3 win. Knowing that he'd been through the ringer in his last match, you might have been worried about facing a kid named Patton from a military base in his next match. Not to worry, though, as Gabe pinned the Yokota Panther in 30 seconds (probably to save energy). That put him in 2nd place in his first high school tournament. That's, uh, pretty good. Shawn's 215 weight class saw two massive brothers from Kubasaki register as walk-ins to bump it up to a 6-person bracket. One of those hulks was his first opponent in pool play, so what did Shawn do? He put on his hulk-buster suit and pinned the behemoth to the mat in 50 seconds. Watching Shawn wrestle at Azabu, you may have gotten the impression that he doesn't like it very much, because instead of going the whole six minutes, he finished off his second match against a St. Mary's Titan in 53 seconds. That put him against a former Far East #2, attending as one of the "lost year" participants. The tree-trunk-legged brick wall who currently coaches wrestling at a local high school while attending college in the US had sliced through his pool like a hot knife through butter. In the championship, Shawn's balance-based moves weren't working (those legs were massive), and the 20 pound weight difference was readily apparent. They went blow for blow through the 1st period. Tied. They started the 2nd, super skill vs mammoth strength, with neither getting the upper hand. Tied. The last bout of the day was the first overtime match of the tournament. Everyone was watching the epic battle unfold before them. In the face of a pressure attack, Shawn initiated a throw but, after a video review to confirm, it was a split second late, ending the match 10-9, with Shawn taking the silver. In his first tournament after joining the ASIJ wrestling program, Dylan found himself in a stacked, 5-person 160-pound bracket. His first match was against a reining Far Each champion from Kadena. Dylan's efforts to end the reign of the Panther ended on the wrong side of a pin. He then faced another Far East foe, this one from St. Mary's. Looking like he'd fell the Titan by jumping out to a 5-0 lead, the experienced wrestler figured something out and fought back to end with a 15-7 lead when the final buzzer sounded. Needing to win his next two in order to place 3rd, that's exactly what Dylan did. Both were Red Devils from Kinnick. He banished the first with a pin in period one, and he exorcised the second with a 10-0 tech fall in less than a minute. Serena, an ASIJ middle school student, was in the girls bracket. Participation rates in high school sports in the US have been on a downward trend for a couple decades (exacerbated by COVID-19). Girls wrestling is an exception. Participation at the high school level has been growing at a healthy rate, and women's wrestling in college is growing, too. Anyone who's followed the Olympics knows that Japan is THE hotspot for girls and women's wrestling. The bracket full of girls that Serena wrestled in is a manifestation of that. Needing to win three in a row to win the bracket, Serena proceeded to not only win, but to pin each of her opponents - in 1:35, 0:59, and 1:38 - to take home the gold medal. She is the future. We ride this wave or get swept along by it. Either way, glad she's on our side. At 129, Katsumi faced a buzz saw, going against a fellow Mustang (and reining Far East champion), a CAJ Knight (the best wrestler on their team), and a Kinnick kid (where toughness must come from breathing all that Pacific Ocean air all day every day at Yokosuka). While he did not prevail in any of the three matches, Katsumi looked competitive against top competition, giving the 1st place Mustang his longest match of the day. Against the experienced Kinnick wrestler, he dropped a 6-4 decision that I think he takes 6 times out of 10. Ethan finished pool play 1-1 against St. Mary's and Yokota at 140-plus (non-standard weight class), both losing and winning by pin (his first ever! Now tied for 2nd on the team), pitting him against the other 2nd place pool placer to go for 3rd (starting to sound like an Abbott & Costello routine). In the 3rd place match against a "lost year" former Titan who was a thorn in an ASIJ predecessor's side, Ethan scored before the more experienced wrestler caught him in a pin move, so he finished just off the podium at 4th. He also helped out a Kadena wrestler (made the trip to Tokyo but his last match was a forfeit win - not fun when you came to wrestle) by acting as his opponent for an exhibition match. In the other pool for 140-plus, Connor first went against an unknown from Kubasaki. It turns out the kid was strong, fast, skilled, and would win the bracket. Connor couldn't get anything going and fell 10-0. In his second match, he faced the St Mary's graduate who has pin moves like crazy. Getting caught in one of them, Connor found himself in the 5th place match against a Yokota Panther. Sometimes, you know you have a wild mustang inside you, but your opponents do some things to keep it corralled. It's very irritating, so when the gate opens, watch out for the stampede. That's exactly what happened when Connor faced his final foe. He took him down, let him up, and took him down with a huge 4-point move to pin him and place 5th in the bracket. All in all it was a great day of wrestling. There were two mats, one was loaned out to the church by CAJ. There was also the "Olympic Legends" mat used by many generations of greats at the Japan Ministry of Defense's National Defense Academy. The refs, led by ASIJ Legend Rin and helped by the video review, were top notch, probably the best reffing I've seen in Japan. There were some hard-fought wins and tough losses along with the first Mustang pins of the season and some total domination that all led to a nice haul of hardware for the Mustangs to bring home to ASIJ. Most significantly, though, there was a sense of normality. From the wrestlers, to their families, to the coaches, everyone talked about how appreciative they were for the opportunity to get out from under the punishing side effects of well intentioned policies for a brief respite of wrestling for real, like they would be if they were in a US or Japanese school. The physical and emotional uplift was palpable. As we move into 2022, we hope to see schedules finalized. The "2021-22 Mustangs Wrestling" tab (front page of this website) has results of dual meets completed through December and a pretty good (but not finalized) stab at the dual meets and tournaments on the docket. If all goes well, competition will start up again shortly after in-person learning returns, and then do a fast-and-furious sprint to the end of the season.
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On Thursday night the American School in Japan wrestling team welcomed their counterparts from the Christian Academy in Japan for a modified dual meet. Maybe "wecomed" is the wrong word. The Mustangs left their benevolence at the mat's edge as they wreaked havoc on the visiting Knights, winning 9 matches to 5 and stretching their non-conference dual meet record to 2-0.
Head of School (and former wrestler) Dr. Jim Hardin was among the assembled home team parents and fans. Regarding what the students have done to get to this point he said, "I am tremendously proud of them. This team, with the way the support each other, is off the charts." This was the second of two dual meets that would normally be conference competitions. However, the season is currently only able to continue with modified rules so, as with last Saturday's contest, this dual meet was also conducted with modified rules that made this a non-conference modified dual meet. That said, I think Dr. Hardin spoke for everyone in the gym when he said, "It feels great having wrestling back!" Both teams started with strong wrestlers right out of the box, but CAJ won the first in a close decision, and then the second match, too. Katsumi could not allow that to go on, so he scored 10 straight points without giving up any on defense to start a string of five straight 10-0 tech fall wins. After dropping a couple more, ASIJ won four of the last five matches to close out the team victory, ending with 9 wins and 5 losses. Oskar won the most exciting match of the night. He scored a standard 2-pt takedown and followed that up with a 4-pt throw to take a commanding 6-0 lead. However, his opponent then scored 10 straight for a huge comeback. Not to be deterred, Oskar fought back to within 2 multiple times, but the bad guy kept staying just ahead. Nearing the end of the 6-minute mark, both wrestlers looked like they could barely stand. But, Oskar dug down just a little deeper and hit a big 4-pt takedown that proved to be the difference as he prevailed 15-14. In other news, team captain Mich looked fantastic as he stayed very technically sound in a 10-0 win against an overmatched opponent. Other ASIJ victors included Aaryan (10-0), Bryce (10-0), Julian (10-0), James, (10-0), Charlie (10-0), and Dylan T (10-0). In case you're second-guessing those scores, they are all correct. CAJ has some experience and talent, but 10-0 is as clean as a tech fall win can be. This represents the last dual meet of the calendar year. The next opportunity to wrestle is the Azabu Ward Tournament on 28 Dec (https://www.eventcreate.com/e/azabutaikai2021), which is not a school sponsored event, so participants will wrestle unattached against kids from other international schools or DOD bases in Japan, from Okinawa to Misawa. In the new year, we will hopefully hear good news about tentative plans turning into confirmed plans for standard dual meets and other tournaments. Opening the season in a modified dual meet with St. Mary's International School, American School in Japan wrestlers toppled the Titans, winning 15 matches to 9 in front of a partisan home crowd of about 80 people who were diligently following COVID-19 protocols in a very well ventilated high school gym Saturday afternoon.
Both teams adapted to rules that were quite unusual but that enabled the season to go forward while still satisfying current COVID-19 countermeasures. They included wearing a mask while wrestling and stopping the action after each takedown to avoid mat wrestling. After starting out 2-3 in the first five matches, ASIJ went on a 6-0 win streak and a later 6-1 stretch to put away St. Mary's in decisive fashion. There were also two ASIJ vs ASIJ matches that ensured everyone got the opportunity to wrestle in front of a crowd on the big mat with professional refs. The team captains led the way, each getting tech falls over their foes: Take Z, paired against the reigning Far East champ, by 16-6; Mich, who's technique looked markedly improved, by 10-0; and Shawn, going against former Kanto Plain #2, by 12-0. Other winners by tech fall, the most impressive win type available in the format of the dual meet, included Katsumi (13-2), Gabe (12-2), Ethan (13-2), Kaisei (12-1), Gregor (10-0), Kazuma (16-6), James (12-0), Dylan T (12-0), Connor (17-7), Alvin (12-2), Bryce, against reigning Far East champ (20-9), and Harald (10-0). Mustangs who went the whole six minutes and came out with a decision victory were Leon (9-4) and Julian (10-6). Overall, there were 26 matches ranging from reigning Far East champ Bryce to the newest of newbies. No one looked completely lost, to the point that it was hard to tell who had never wrestled before this season. There is still clearly some rust to shake off for some of the returners, and the coaches noted several things they'll work on in practice. That said, this was about the best start - dominating victory over an annual powerhouse - you could possibly hope for after an entire season with no competitions. Prior to the day's main event, Coaches Adam Carlson and Rei Suzuki held a meeting for parents to introduce the program, expound on their intended outcomes, and dive in to some of the nuts and bolts of the season. Coach Carlson said that wrestling is a means to the end of helping the students grow and progress as people. He also noted that the 心・技・体 (shin-gi-tai) on the back of team t-shirts and sweatshirts means improving three parts of a whole person: heart - the mental aspect, technique - the skill aspect, and body - the physical aspect. It was plain to all the parents in attendance that their children are fortunate to have such great coaches. The Mustangs will host the Christian Academy in Japan, who has looked pretty good in early season action, for a dual meet on Thursday, Dec 9, in the high school gym. Despite being in the same conference, this will be another non-conference contest held in the same modified format (masks, takedowns only). The modified dual meet will be the last time the wrestlers officially represent ASIJ until the new year. Hopefully, we see the successful implementation of "regular" wrestling seasons in both Japanese and US high schools, as well as in the DOD schools in Japan, become the evidence that enables tentative plans for the rest of the season to turn concrete. |
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