State Wrestling

"Emotionless, exhausted and without expression, Ryker Haddock loped off the Pepsi Center floor Friday night like it was any other match.

A triple-overtime win, against the top-ranked wrestler in the state, for a spot in the championship finals, and no fist-pumping celebration?"

Just the perfect athlete you want in the finals, right? I like when kids go crazy after winning. It makes my job fun and exciting. Ryker Haddock is the kind of kid that takes it in stride. He barely cracks a smile. He took to the mat in the finals and opened a can of whoop-ass. Up by a bunch of points I figured this would be the time all of the happiness would explode. It didn't. He hugged his coach, hugged his family, not saying any words, and headed for the elevator. His coach yells: "These guys want to talk to you!" He just won the state title and he's heading back to his seat in the upper deck? Luckily for me his partner in the wrestling room came down to congratulate him. Hoisting him up and twirling him around.

All in all I a good time last week shooting state wrestling. We had 30 kids in the tourney the first day, not counting two other schools I had to cover for our sister paper. It was a long three days of running around, worrying about covering three matches at the same time, in a few cases. I always try to cover them all, as sports writers like to change their minds on who the focus is until it's too late. State wrestling is a tough assignment. Not because the photos aren't there, but because they are everywhere. It is hard to cover reaction when you are expected to have all of the action. Heck, I guess it's easy when your main wrestler has no reaction at all.