Vegas is...Vegas. I'm not a big fan of the city, at least the Strip. Too many people, too loud, too much alcohol, too much extreme behavior, etc., etc. Regardless, that's where we stayed. We flew in Thursday evening, and after checking into the hotel Rachael wanted to walk around a bit. We wandered around and ended up at NYNY. They have a rollercoaster on top of the hotel, and I was more or less coerced into riding it. I would never choose that for myself a night before a big tournament, but I figured it would be a good way to blow off some pent-up energy. It did that for sure. I was trying to control my breathing but it looked in the pictures like I was trying to vomit.
Friday morning we get to the venue around 11:30am b/c Jamie's first match was scheduled for 12:30pm. It was nerve-wracking trying to find Walter so that he could coach Jamie, get space next to the mat to yell/spectate and keep track of the match times. Jamie did awesome, being patient and working for take-downs in all of his matches. I think he was on the bottom once or twice, but otherwise he dominated from top positions. He worked hard on take-downs in class leading up to this and it was gratifying to see his hard work pay off.
The nervous energy inside the building was outrageous. Rachael was scheduled to start around 2:30pm and I was supposed to start around 4:30pm. There were numerous computer/network problems which kept putting everything back. Rachael was pushed back by a half hour or so and I don't think my first match started until 6pm. Again with the trying to track down Walter (he was coaching a lot of people yesterday) and make sure I knew the start times for Rachael's matches. She went out and dominated both the first and second match, getting the second gold. I was so happy for my best friend and teammate.
In my first match my opponent pulled guard. I managed to stay out of the closed guard and quickly passed, taking a top position and worked from mount and the back for the majority of the match. I eventually got an arm-bar to finish.
It was a three person bracket, so she went against the person who had the initial bye. They were pretty evenly matched for a bit, but the other woman eventually passed, got to mount and finished with an armbar. Watching their match I felt like there's no reason why I couldn't beat the third woman. I didn't want to get overconfident, but I wanted to go into the match believing that I could win.
After waiting for what seemed like a very long time (~40min?), I stepped out for the final. I wanted to get the takedown, and did a godawful job of it. I ended up in guard, but at least she didn't get the takedown points. I swept and instead of really focusing on staying on top, I tried to take the back and ended up getting swept. However, somewhere along the way I was awarded an advantage, so as long as she didn't score any other points or advantages I'd win. I was able to close my guard and that was that. I was actively looking for sweeps and submissions, but wasn't able to get anything going. Once I realized I was up an advantage, I kept my guard mostly closed. Less than a minute later, gold.
Happy for myself, but more than that, thrilled for my teammates. Both of them put a lot of work and emotional energy into the tournament. Words can't describe how awesome it was.
1 comment:
Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!
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