Missouri Rookie State Wrestling Tournament

The 2009 Rookie State tournament was held in St. Joseph MO this year and I was pretty excited for Madison to be wrestling in it. It is a tournament held for 6 & unders and first year wrestlers from all over the state of MO. It was at our last girls tournament in Emporia KS that Ellen mentioned that she would be interested in practicing and possibly wrestling in the next girls tournament at the end of February. A few weeks ago she said that she wanted to be entered into the Rookie tournament too even though she would be wrestling boys. I still cant believe it....Ellen is so weird about wrestling in front of boys, let alone against boys....but we applied for her USA wrestling card and entered her into the tournament.
So this past weekend me, Carl & one of his wrestlers, Jenny Germany (who just took 2nd at Nationals) took the girls to St. Joseph for the big event. It was crazy there....there were 15 mats and more kids than I had ever seen at a meet before. Ellen was first to wrestle between her and Madi and she was up against a pretty tall kid that was nothing but muscles. She got pinned pretty early in that match and afterward told me that she was so nervous that she was on the verge of crying throughout the entire match and felt like she could throw up at any time. At least now that she had wrestled her first match, she had that out of her system! Madi had her first match and did pretty well but ended up getting pinned in the second round. Ellen wrestled one more time and fought pretty hard...it was much better than the last one, but she still ended up getting pinned just as the first round was ending. Madi lasted longer in her second round as well but also got pinned. Madi's best friend Levi however took 1st place in his weight group and left as State Champion for 10 & under 120lb group! Yay Levi! All in all, it was a VERY long and stressful day for me and the girls...but a lot of fun. Now we cant wait for Feb. 28...MO Girls Tournament in KC!!!