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2009 South Dakota Training Camp and USAW 2009 Junior/Cadet Nationals and Women's Nationals, Fargo ND

Blog by: Coach John Schmidtke

Keep posted as we continue to blog our trip.

Saturday, July 25, 2009 - Aloha to Fargo

Friday night the team went out to the movies and then played late into the early morning.

We spent Saturday morning leisurely packing, catching a few finals matches at the dome, and eating last meals at the dining hall, before loading up in our Red River Trails bus for the ride to Minneapolis.

Lou, our driver, showed us how to run the video system and so two intellectually uplifting comedies played on the drive: Role Models, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. They are immature comedies that you can't help laugh at and then feel guilty about your immature comedic quotient that caused you to laugh. Curse you, Adam Sandler and Seann William Scott! About 4 hours later we pulled into the parking lot of the La Quinta Inn & Suites off of Nicolette Avenue in Minneapolis, dumped our luggage, reloaded on the bus, and headed for Mall of America to spend our evening and our money.

The MoA is an atrium of retails store and food courts suspended on multiple levels under 8 acres of sky lights. The stores surround an amusement park with a ferris wheel, roller coaster, balloon rides, and 22 other ride attractions. As we walked the .57 miles around one level we came to an Elvis impersonator contest in which all Elvi (the plural of Elvis?) seemed to have picked his late 60s' Blaisdell concert look - rhinestones, sequined wide bell-bottoms, fluted collar, low-slung belt, gaudy rings, and spray-starched immovable hair - as the version of the man they most admired. Two Elvi even sang a duet to double the odd vision. The tourist info says that the MoA boasts 350 such events a year (surely not all Elvis gigs).

The MoA sits on land where the old Met Stadium housed the Twins and the Vikings, less than a mile from the airport. There was no recession apparent on the 4.3 miles of storefront jammed with people carrying packages and eating pizza pretzels, drinking Caribou Coffee, getting hair extensions at kiosks, or having their portraits drawn on the spot as a creative way to rest their feet before shopping more.

The 10-passenger La Quinta van picked up 23 of us at 9:30pm for the short but cramped ride to the hotel. Coach Billy took video of us exiting the van like clowns at a circus. Given how much food we ate at the MoA, the sardine impression was even more impressive.

Tomorrow we eat at 7am, check out at 8am, head to the airport with a 930am ETA, and check in for various flights that have us leaving between 11 and 2, the end of our two-week wrestling adventure.

Friday, July 24, 2009 - Ouch (part 2)!

And then we were done, so quickly and unexpectedly that we drifted out of the dome a few at a time, no longer a team in contention, puzzled by the speed of the exit, angry at calls that went the wrong way, but with nothing to do but pack for the long bus ride diagonally across Minnesota from Fargo to Minneapolis, wondering what we overlooked in our training.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 - Promise

Michael finished the first day 4-0, Sani 1-0, Drake 3-1, and Shayden 3-1. Otherwise, our Juniors seemed to follow our Cadets. We had sparks of fire but this is a tournament that requires 4-alarm blazes in order reach the podium. The session ended early enough for the team to go off campus and yet still be back by lights out.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 - Ouch!

Our Cadet Freestylers face strong competition and did not wrestle as well as we'd hoped. We left the first session not needing to return.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 – Another All-American

Michael Nakagawa placed 6th in the 119 lb Greco Roman competition. Michael earned All-American honors for the third year in a row, an impressive feat for any wrestler from any state, and the first time ever for a Hawaii wrestler.

The ladies placed 7th in the team competition, each one taking home a nice octagonal team medal on a pale blue ribbon. We had no wrestlers in the four heaviest weight classes and so even though we held the lead in the head-to-head contests, we gave up too many points by forfeit to place higher. The overall quality of our female wrestlers exceeds that in every other state; we just need to fill the weight classes.

The Fargo Dome is more a crater than a dome. They scooped deep into the black prairie soil to form the competition floor, as big as the playing surface in Aloha Stadium, covered with foam padding and a football field of faux-grass carpeting. The rectangular roof (no dome at all) is supported by green metal girders spanning the arena floor braced on square concrete pillars, each pillar connected to the next by bare cinder block walls. There are 34 sections, 40 rows high and 17 seats wide, not counting the box seats.

Configured for wrestling, 23 mats fill the floor with Mat 1 sitting on a 40” raised platform at the 50-yard line under a giant USA Wrestling banner and an huge Asics 3-D logo suspended by cables from the ceiling.

The acoustics seem horrible although the posters in the concession areas show Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, and various C&W performers as past attractions. For us, it’s all echoed noise with whistles, coaches’ screams, and loud speakers blaring bout numbers and mat assignments.

The team had a listless evening practice from 6 to 8 before a light dinner at 830 and lights out at 10. Everyone is resting and transitioning mentally and physically from GR to FS. Tomorrow the Cadet FS boys make weight before making a run at medals while the girls make a run for he soft ice cream maker, unhindered by making weight anytime soon.

Monday, July 20, 2009 - Eight All-Americans So Far

Finals Matches for

JT Ojerio Chrissy Chow

Photos by: A. Erice

Things that you might not notice, see, or hear when you watch 1,500+ Greco & Freestyle matches on the floor of the Fargo Dome:

The Northern Pacific RailRoad runs east-west just south of campus and the train whistles sound through the late afternoon and into the night.

The flat prairie on which they built the NDSU campus has no hills, dips, or rises -- stepping up a curb represents a major elevation change.

An early afternoon thunderstorm instantly flooded the level paved parking lots and water spilled more than flowed into the concrete slab streets where passing cars sent up rooster tails from puddles with no place to go.

A nice breeze pushed the dark thunder clouds south-east to clear the sky but that same breeze filled the air with a rich eau-de-bovine from the NDSU research stockyards north-west of the campus.

But if you were a Hawaii female wrestler, up at 5:30am to check weight at 6:00am in the Dome (thanks to Coach Ku'u who led the girls into the boy's restroom where the only check-weight scale was available, flustering the stadium volunteers and prompting USAW to promptly fix the oversight), weighing in at 7:20am, and starting to wrestle at 9:00am, the trains, the terrain, the rain, and the aroma didn't matter. Our 8 ladies wrestled well and 6 of them earned the right to say for the rest of their lives that they stood on the podium as an All-American by placing in the top eight of the largest wrestling tournament in the world.

At 95 lbs. Erin Uehara placed 6th and Meghan Chun placed 8th.

At 109 lbs. Malia Medeiros placed 5th.

At 116 lbs. Chrissy Chow placed 4th and Megan Yamaguchi placed 7th.

At 139 lbs. JT Ojerio placed 4th.

Ally Somera was a match away from placing at 95 lbs. while Courtney Kinimaka had too tough a draw to overcome at 124 lbs. Tomorrow the ladies compete in the national duals, probably joining up with women from other states to form a full team.

On the boy's side, Michael Nakagawa cemented All-American status by remaining undefeated in Junior Greco. Tomorrow morning brings round-robin pool play to determine what step on the podium he'll compete for.

Bryan Peralta earned All-American status by placing 6th at 140 in the Cadet Greco tournament. In just his first national-level Greco competition, Bryan's only losses were to the wrestlers who finished first, third and fifth in the nation. Wow!

The Cadets start back up in Freestyle on Wednesday. The Junior Freestylers go on Thursday.

Sunday, July 19, 2009 - Cadet & Junior Greco

Michael Nakagawa (5th round match vs. Ohio)

Photo by: A. Erice

Bryan Peralta won his first match (giving him 5 wins in a row) but lost his second, so he will wrestle for 5th place in the nation tomorrow afternoon. Very impressive.

The Junior boys started Greco this morning in an impressive fashion with successive wins by Ryan Nakagawa, Drake Medeiros, Jordan Ng, Michael Nakagawa, Andrew Hirai, Shayden Terukina, Maika Nagata, Marcus Finau, and Sani Fuimaono. Of which, many of the matches were captured on film by the talented Coach Aubrey. The photos will be availble to view later when we return to Hawaii. Slowly, injuries and narrow losses left only Michael still in the tournament, undefeated at 119 pounds. There are six wrestlers still alive in his pool; the last four will medal. Tomorrow's first session will determine who will be an All-American and whether the wrestlers are vying for 1st, 3rd, 5th, or 7th.

The girls held their last work out in the Bison Sports Arena. They weigh in tomorrow morning and start wrestling at 9:00am. Their individual tournament is 1 day. On Tuesday they wrestle in a dual meet format, which last year placed them 3rd in the Nation following Team Texas (2nd) and Team California (1st).

The wrestlers are so concentrated on the tournament that I'm sure most fail to notice the gorgeous hanging baskets of flowers suspended from every light pole on campus and the neatly arrayed flower beds filled with pink, yellow, white, bright red and blood red flowers that fill the median strips on the campus roads. To get to the Fargo Dome you have to pass Newman Outdoor Field, a something-for-everyone minor league ball park, home of the Fargo-Moorhead Red Hawks of the Northern League. This weekend the Red Hawks played the Winnepeg Goldeyes, a day-light double-header on Saturday and a Sunday afternoon rubber game to claim the series, to good size crowds. It seemed a nice place to spend a family Sunday afternoon.

Saturday, July 18, 2009 - From Dog House to All-American

A cardinal rule for all wrestlers is to always make weight. We check at the end of practices and we measure what we can eat and/or drink before going to bed so that we are on or close to on when we get up. We show up early to weigh ins to check our weight and then we run until we make it. Brian Peralta checked last night and ran this morning but he did not make 135. The coaches collectively frowned. That earned him a first round match with Zac Benitz from Wisconsin, a beast who looked like he should have been at 160. Brian wrestled well enough but the Wisconsin kid was too big to budge.

A second cardinal rule for all wrestlers is to forget about your last match and concentrate on your next bout. Brian followed that rule four times in a row, scoring a 30-second fall over North Carolina; a 1-1, 6-0 decision over Ohio; a 4-1, 0-3, 1-1 decision over New York; and finishing the day with a 3-0, 1-0 decision over Iowa.

Brian is one of four wrestlers still alive in his bracket. Those four will wrestle each other in a round-robin (unless they've already met) to determine pool placement. The first place winner in the pool faces the first place winner in the other pool for the national championship. The runner-ups in the pools go for third. The third place pool winners go for fifth. The fourth place finishers go for seventh. The top eight wrestlers in the weight class earn All-American honors, so Brian will end up somewhere on the awards podium tomorrow. Congratulations, Brian!

It takes about 10 minutes to drive from the Fargo Dome at 1800 N. University Drive to the MeritCare Hospital at 801 N. Broadway, in Fargo. We timed it as we drove Nainoa Tompkins there following his second round match in which he broke his right wrist trying to stop a head & arm throw. The x-rays showed a displaced radial fracture that they reduced after knocking Noa out with an IV drip anesthetic. Because Noa cut weight he was slightly dehydrated and his veins hid from the nurses. The first nurse failed with her first two sticks and she called in an even cuter nurse who also failed to tap into a vein after two sticks. A third nurse, the cutest so far, made the connection on her second try. I was personally disappointed in Noa's unwillingness to take the pain and try for more cute nurses, but the clean-up hitter on the ER nursing staff might have been Nurse Ratched so I suppose giving in when he did made sense. Ku'u commented that Noa looked like his arm had been attacked by a
vampire. Five-plus hours later, Noa emerged, right arm casted from his thumb over the elbow, with a prescription for pain killers, and two pages worth of post-procedure instructions.

In the meantime, Bryant Fukushima and Bradley Mau finished their first national-level Greco tournament 0-2, a common experience that does not reflect the value of the hard work they put in to get here.

Since I was at the hospital with Noa and his nurses, I don't know how the workouts went for the Junior Greco boys and Freestyle girls.

I also can't say what was for lunch (Noa, Ku'u and I watched Eddie Murphy as Dr. Doolittle, and read Popular Farmer Magazine (Sept '06) from 1030am to 5pm while we waited in the ER). But dinner was a choice between so-so stromboli or very bad cheese ravioli, lots of which got sent back to the kitchen on the dishwasher conveyor belt, uneaten. The sandwich bar and the Chicken with Wild Rice soup tureen seemed more popular today than yesterday.

Tonight Coach Oney leads a band of weight-chasers on a run around the perimeter of the campus. We wake up at 530am for the weigh ins to start day 1 of the Junior tournament and day 2 of the Cadet competition.

Friday, July 17, 2009 - Brookings to Fargo

The ladies had a 7am run on their last day in Brookings. The lighter boys hit the mat at 9am and the heavier boys closed out the Brookings' phase with a 10am mat work out. The rest of the morning involved emptying trash, packing up, and turning in keys. By 12:14pm we were on the road in another Red River Trails bus for the 190 mile ride north.

When we arrived at NDSU, the boys checked into Churchill Hall, the girls into Thompson Hall, and then we all assembled at the Bison Sports Arena to get ID cards. We met up with Coach Oney, Jordan Ng, and Chrissie Chow, making out team complete. An hour later we joined Team Missouri on the mats in the BSA. There are 8 mats in the arena and 2 in the wrestling room (by contrast, the Hawaii state tournament only has 6 mats on the floor at the NBC Arena), all filled with wrestlers from various states, muscled, sweaty, scuffed, and on edge. Lots of ugly ears.

Tomorrow the Cadets weigh in and take the mat on Day 1 of the Greco tournament. The Junior boys and the ladies will run as needed to maintain weight, cheer the Cadets on, and work out in the afternoon from 2-4pm.

We ate dinner at the Residence Dining Center. Spaghetti with various sauces, garlic French bread, steam cubed carrots & peas as a main course but the main temptation being the soft-serve fat-free iced-milk dispenser with too many embellishing condiments to enjoy in less than a full semester. Some sad-eyed wrestlers just sampled the salad bar options. The dining hall doesn't have trays in order to cut down on washing and to do it's "green" duty. That makes for lots of foot traffic as hungry diners forage around the dining hall a plate at a time. The dining hall also gets federal grant money to run low-fat, highly nutritious menus. They've done a good job keeping the taste in lo-cal foods. Elastic waist bands are put to good use here.

Thursday, July 16, 2009 - A View From My Bed

Late Wednesday night I didn't feel right and Thursday morning found me unable to leave my bed. Missing Mayabb's practices made me feel worse still. Billy, Matt, Aubrey, Ku'u or John will have to fill you in about Thursday.

I do know that the kids had way too much fun with wars and chases of all sorts going up and down the hall.

left to right: Ally, Malia, Courtney, Megan Y., JT, Meghan C., Erin (missing Chrissy)

photo by: A. Erice

Thursday, July 16, 2009 - Brookings Day 4

Team Hawaii started off the day with a good run. Practices were broken up into three different groups today due to the large number of wrestlers from HI, SD, and MO. The lighter weights, 135 and down practiced at 9:00AM, the other weights at 10:30AM and the girls practiced at noon. The guys were coached again by Coach Gary, and Coach Rob and Coach Ku'u ran the girls practice. The girls were joined by the Team MO girls as well.

Coach Schmidtke came down with some 18 hour flu or something, and was out of commission for most of the day. Coach Billy Wood, who moved to Idaho from Hawaii almost two years ago, is here hanging out with the team. He is having a blast and is comfortable and seems to be in his element.

Coach Matt took two van loads of kids to Walmart to do some shopping. Wow, it took the girls a long time. Mrs. Medeiros is doing a fantastic job of keeping food around for the kids and running errands. Such a big help!

Lunch consisted of sandwiches and fruit and such. Time for cutting weight is getting shorter and the wrestlers are aware and seem to be on track to make weight.

5:00PM, back to practices with the same breakdown as this morning. But we were all lucky to have 2008 Olympian and former MO wrestler, Spencer Mango, come in the room and show some great stuff. It was a super time to learn some new moves, sharpen the skills we already have, and cut some more weight. The girls finished around 10:00PM. It made for a long day for some of the coaches that attended all 6 practices.

Tomorrow is check out day, and we head up to Fargo. Hopefully Coach Schmidtke will feel better, and all the kids will have a great practice before we get on the bus.

Blog by: Coach Billy

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - Team Missouri Arrives

The hotter a wrestling room gets the softer the wrestling mats get. On Wednesday evening, when we joined Team Missouri for an evening workout in the SDSU wrestling room, the mats were very, very soft. The trainer on hand to help with bumps, bruises and taping had to leave the room. It took a minimum of 3 shirts to get through the 90 minute practice. Good thing Coach Rob bought extra washes on the swipe card that operates the washers and dryers on our floor. Coach Mayabb runs an amazingly up-tempo practice. Lots was learned. The plan for tomorrow is to split the teams at 130 and below and 135 and heavier so we have more space to throw bodies into without taking out teammates.

The ladies got their workout in ahead of the Missouri team's arrival. They worked par terre offense and defense as well as clinches. They look tough on the mat.

The hot wrestling room was counter-balanced by the cold water showers waiting for us in the dorm. A valve somewhere on campus broke and we had only cold water to rinse off in. The next time there is a water shortage on Oahu, they should ban heated showers because no one lingers leisurely in cold water after the last sud is washed off.

That evening, Holden, dressed in black from head to toe, with short sleeves to keep us from wondering what was up them, put on a professional magic show in the common room, complete with audience participation. He smoothly handled the hecklers (I'm not naming any names, Coach Billy) as he vanished cards, snapped missing cards out of the air, made cards change color, made cut ropes re-attach, made knotted ropes untangle, and caused steel hoops with no gaps to link and un-link at will. The crowd was awed, laughing and applauding at every prestidigitation.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - Brookings Day 3

Started the day with a 7am wake-up run.

Randy Lewis, 1984 Olympic champ and 2-time NCAA champ, ran the 9am practice we had with Team South Dakota. Cool Hi-C defense and front headlock variations. Randy, known in the wrestling community as Lewboo, never allowed enough time for the wrestlers to really drill a move before showing another variation, niftier than the first. The kids started laughing because it made almost no sense to drill the move before they had to circle back up for the next. Later in the practice the pace slowed down and the quality of the execution picked up.

Andrew Hirai knocked heads with Holden Mowat doing backward rolls during warm ups and split his scalp. Lots of blood but little damage. The trainer said no stitches and gave him a foam pad to wear under his headgear for protection. We'll glue the cut with Liquid Bandaids until it heals. Holden on the other hand, just rubbed it off and kept on practicing.

The rest of the day will be relaxed. Ladies have a short practice at 430pm. Team Missouri comes in around 6pm and the Greco practice for the boys at 7pm should be intense, high energy, and challenging with Coach Gary Mayabb, Team Missouri's head coach running the show. Coach Mayabb's practices are great learning experiences for the coaches.

Sunday & Monday, July 12 &13, 2009 - Honolulu to Brookings

Team Hawaii gathered at the airport to catch the 515 pm NWA flight, non-stop to Minneapolis. The plane was packed thanks to a lightning strike on an earlier flight that forced some passengers to fly with us.

NWA, which seems to be owned and run by Delta, had personal back-of-the-seat video screens -- games, movies, music, maps, info, etc -- and the trip from HNL to MSP is a 3-movie journey.

All luggage arrived with us at MSP although Ryan Nakagawa had a juice explosion in his suitcase, covering everything. That gave him something to do while we waited for Brain Peralta, who was already on the mainland attending wrestling camps, to find us at Baggage Claim #3. We loaded up on a 56-passenger Red River Trails tour bus driven by Bob Smith (from England), picked up Andre Hirai from the nearby Hampton Inn (he was also at wrestling camps), and headed to IHOP to fuel up for the 3-4 hour drive on Route 14 (The Laura Ingalls-Wilder Highway for you Little House on the Prairie fans) to South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota.

We overwhelmed IHOP. The service was slow and inefficient. That made the meal longer than we planned but the extra plate of eggs-over-easy with a T-bone steak and the huge Colorado omelets sent us out the door satisfied. The bus had been noisy from the airport to the restaurant but full stomachs made for heavy eyes and and a quiet drive until we stopped in Sleepy Eye for a bathroom break and to load up on snacks. Two hours later we pulled into Brookings.

Our three Lahainaluna wrestlers (Blake Ball, Holden Mowat, Jaret Nahooikaika) met us at the door of the dorm. We checked into the second floor of Pierson Hall, girls on the south wing, boys on the north, and dressed out immediately for a shake-the-cobwebs-off run and sprint. Then showers, naps, and laundry before a 7pm workout in the very hot SDSU wrestling room, complete with the unventilated, embedded smell of thousands of prior hard-drilling wrestlers chasing weight, training with Team South Dakota.