That match that almost made me throw up

Last night, we went to West Milwaukee for C-man to wrestle with the middle school. At about 20 seconds into the first period, he got an injury timeout. His right arm was hurting, and he had tears. The coach talked to him for a bit, and then sent him back out where C-man fought hard, but was down 2-4. It felt like he was being manhandled much worse than the score showed, but he wasn't getting scored on.

In the second period, they fought for a bit, and C-man got put to his back. I was sure he was pinned at least 3 times. But I saw a moment when he decided he wasn't going to go down, and he fought hard, crunching up so the guy couldn't get his back down. For about 1:20, that kid fought.

Then it was time for the third period. His arm was clearly hurting him bad, and he couldn't pull the kid around with his right hand. He got put to his back again, nearly being pinned again. But then the kid got a little too high, the coach shouted, "To your left!" and C-man amazingly flipped around and got on top.

The team and the crowd went absolutely wild. After all this time of nobody thinking he was going to make it, he was on top.

His coach yelled for him to look up to put more pressure on the other kid. But being in the third period after having spent most of his time fighting off being pinned, there was no smile this time.

And then he flipped him over fully, and the ref's hand came down with a loud whomp.

I didn't know whether to cheer or throw up.

And he was hurt, exhausted, and just spent, barely making it through the team's congratulatory lineup. The determination on this kid is ridiculous. I was so proud of him for not giving it up, especially after we'd just talked on Tuesday about how bad kids feel when they realize they gave up.

A little while later, C-man said the pain was not subsiding in his elbow, and he heard a crack when it started to hurt. Being experienced in these matters, I took him straight to urgent care for some x-rays at his request. Preliminary results are a sprained elbow, and he's in a sling, but no break. (We high fived about that - he was just sick with anticipation of the results) He's supposed to wrestle on Sunday, but we'll see. The good news is he now has a 2 week break from middle school wrestling, and since high school state is next weekend, he won't wrestle then either.

So here's to determination and healing!