Wrestling Season Wrap Up

Zak & my nephew, Jon, who unknowingly broke his arm in his first match and still wrestled another match for all three rounds. What a stud!

Zak's first match against the State Champion

Fourteen mats going at once. Crazy!


District Heavy Weight Champions

Senior night against Bonneville's Zak Pickering

Senior Night, Mom & Dad are so proud!

Pre-match warm ups

After selling his soul to Coach Eckman, Zak's final wrestling season finally came to an end. We were lucky that the district tournament was held at South Fremont, so we didn't have to travel too far for that one. Zak got lucky and had byes for his first two rounds. His first match was against the heavy weight from Sugar Salem. This kid had already beat Zak once and so he really wanted to beat him. But he wasn't having a very good day and just wasn't in the zone. So unfortunately he got pinned. Needless to say this didn't make him a very happy camper. I have learned to just steer clear when he loses. But Layne said something and just about drew back a stub. His next match was against our freshman heavy weight, Jaren Eckman, the coaches son. He has been out most of the year with an injury and Zak pinned him easily in the first round. This gave him third place for districts and that means that he got to go to the State Wrestling Championship. Even after winning the second match he was still grumpy and snapped at Layne. We both got after him for having a bad attitude and told him we deserved better respect for the time we had taken off to come and support him. We feel like his friends treat us better than he does sometimes.

The next weekend we had twelve boys from our team go to state. It was really neat to have such a good showing. Zak drew the short stick and got matched up with the kid ranked number one in the state for his first match. Before he left I told him to just go and have fun and enjoy the experience of being at state. That alone is a great accomplishment. I told him to just leave everything on the mat. He made it into the second round against the eventual state champion. And much to my shock and pleasant surprise not too long after the match he came and sat by us and was pleasant and acted like he knew us and even liked us. WOW! To me that was better than taking the title. He actually listened to what we had to say and then changed his behavior. That was a mother's payday, big time!

He ended up pinning the guy in his next match in the first round. That was exhilarating and such a relief. I wanted him to get at least one win at state. He lost his next match, so he didn't get to place. That had him fuming for a little while. But still he got over it before too long. The team ended up taking second place for state. We also had two state champions, Brock Banta at 125 and Brian Rhodehouse at 215. Russ Neilson took 4th. He really had something to feel bad about. He had some bad calls in two different matches. But I am very proud of them all.