By Peter Dewey

The theme for Day 2 is survival. There are two more rounds in Pool A and then it becomes win or go home in the Consolation bracket. Coach Lujan asks the team to guard against a letdown. AA status is gone but it would be a helluva ride from here to a Consolation Championship.

First up is New York. This figured to be a toss-up based on a common opponent: Florida beat Texas 32 -31 and beat New York 31-29. And it proved to be just that. Texas gets a slow start losing 98 and 103 but then Brandon McDonald wins at 112. Score: NY 7 Texas 4

Jeremy and Josh Sandoval loose to very tough kids from New York but neither was teched and they both scored to earn points. And in between Ben Ashmore picked up a fall. This means Texas outscored NY by a point (7-6) even though NY won two of the three matches. A lesson learned from Day 1 – get at least a point from each match. Score: NY 13 Texas 11

At 135, Luke Silver earned a hard fought 3-1, 2-1 victory over a very tough P.J. Gillespie. Luke Ashmore followed with a shutout and Johnny Koepp took a tough 3 period loss. But the BL studs had given Texas the lead. Score: Texas 18 NY 17

Losses at 152 and 160 could not be completely erased by Rowdy Fred Rowsey’s 6-0, 3-1 win at 171 and the lead seesawed back to NY. Score NY 25 Texas 22.

So it would again come down to the last 3 weights. At 189 and 215 Texas has but two wrestlers – both 189s- Teddy Gambordella and Robert Prigmore. Both take turns at 215. Both wrestled Greco. Robert has survived pretty well so far but Greco has taken a heavy toll on Ted. He is wrestling on guts and determination. Ted busted his butt at 189 but guts and determination couldn’t quite earn the win as he fell short 3-1, 1-4, 1-4. But Prigmore rose to the occassion again with a 6-0, 2-0 shutout. Once again the final bout would decide the match. Troy Witt did not look good losing the first period 0-1 but he discarded the heavyweight dance and went all outin period 2. But he came up short 3-7.
Final Score: NY 31 Texas 27

This loss stung but honestly it wasn’t as costly as the Florida loss. Both NY and Texas would be in the Consolation bracket – on opposite sides – could they meet again?

In the final Pool match Texas easily dispatched an outmanned California Gold (B team) by the score of 46-21. The boys then had a much needed 5 hour rest until the beginning of the Consolation Round at 7pm.

The opponent in Consolation Round 1 was Washington. Texas grabbed big mo with a win at 105 and rode a winning streak all the way through 171. Washington ran out several tough kids during the streak but Salinas, McDonald , both Sandovals, both Ashmores, Silver, Koepp, Forsythe, Logan and Rowsey all won – 11 wins in a row and the score stood 42-7. Texas did not win another match and in fact could have forfeited at 189 and 215 to give the battered bodies of Prigmore and Gambordella time to rest. Wasn’t happening. Both these warriors took the mat but lost tough, hard fought matches. In my opinion this was easily the best match Team Texas has wrestled in Freestyle. If they can bring some more of that tomorrow, it could be a very interesting day.