Girard College High School, Philadelphia PA - No high school sport quite matches the raw emotion that you’ll see at a wrestling match.   The athletes throw themselves out in front of the viewing public and basically leave it all on the mat every time.  You have to do that in wrestling, or else you don’t stand a chance.  Saturday morning and afternoon at Girard College, that emotion was on full display at the 2008 Bicentennial League Championship Tournament.   At the end of a long, demanding tourney, Lower Moreland pulled off the team win by scoring 250.5 points, 77.5 points higher than second place New Hope.

Lower Moreland had 6 individual champions, including Kevin Creedon of the 189lb. class, who managed to win his match in a blazing 42 seconds.   Another champion for Lower Moreland included John Elwood, who won in the 285lb class in the last match to end the tourney.  “I was pumped up,” he said after the tournament.  “I had confidence and wrestled smart.”

New Hope finished as the runner up with 173 points.  They had 7 second place winners, and 3 consolation champions.  Bristol, too undermanned to get enough points to win the tournament, had the second most first place finishes with 5.  This included Luis Figueroa, who won MVP of the meet by winning perhaps the most thrilling match of the day over Jake Slack of Plumstead Christian.  “That’s like my rival,” Figueroa said after the tournament.  “We both went to regionals; I wanted to see how I matched up against him.”  The two matched up very well, and had to take several breaks in their match to recuperate.  The match was so emotionally and physically draining that Slack, upset after losing the the 14-11 decision, threw his headgear and earned 2 unsportsmanlike conducts, which got him disqualified. 

Another great match was between Bristol’s Nick Burton and Lower Moreland’s Seung Ho Rim in the 125lb. class.  This match went down to the wire and Burton edged it out 10-9.

After the tournament was over, the teams and players anxiously waited over half an hour for the announcement of the winner.  Once it was announced that New Hope was the runner up, the Lower Moreland wrestlers exploded.  “Everyone worked hard,” Lower Moreland coach John Spoerl said after his team found out they won.  “Everyone pulled together and did what they had to do to win the trophy.”

The teams move on to the District Championships, where the emotional level will be at an even higher tilt.  If it’s anything like the display from this past Saturday, wrestling fans will be in for yet another treat.