Things learned, observed in Pacific high school wrestling Week 6.0
Published: February 1, 2012
It was the smallest field on record in the 5-year-old “Rumble on the Rock” wrestling tournament. Just three teams, venerable host Kubasaki and its Okinawa archrival Kadena were joined this time around by the event’s first entrant from Guam, Father Duenas Memorial, which finished fourth in Guam’s regular season and postseason tournament two months ago.
For complete results of Friday's dual-meet tournament, click here. For complete results of Saturday's individual-freestyle tournament and the DODDS Japan finals at Yokota, click here.
Might seem like the tournament is on its last legs?
Don’t bet on it, say the events founder and organizer Fred Bales, Kubasaki’s athletics director, and Friars coach Terry Debold.
Debold formed back in October the first of what he hopes to be many Phoenix Open Invitational tournaments, named for Father Duenas Memorial School’s new Phoenix Center in Dededo. He plans to reciprocate Bales’ invitation to the “Rumble” tournament with one of his own to Kadena and Kubasaki for the second edition of the Phoenix.
Debold says he plans to hold the thing over the Christmas break, which would be right after the Guam season and smack in the middle of Kadena’s and Kubasaki’s campaign. Very much like Kubasaki used to do years ago when coaches Jeff Pellaton and Terry Chumley were at the helm, flying the Dragons to the old Eagle Open, staged by Guam wrestling patriarch Neal Kranz and held in late December every year.
But not only that. Debold, in a pre-“Rumble” meet speech on Friday to the masses gathered at Kubasaki’s Dragon Dome, promised Bales and the “Rumble” organizers that he plans to recruit as many Guam teams as he possibly can for next January’s “Rumble” and bring whomever he can with him.
That would be nothing short of marvelous. A win-win for a “Rumble” tournament that very nearly met its extinction this year.
The first three years of “Rumble,” St. Mary’s International, American School In Japan and Christian Academy Japan were regular guests because the door to DODDS Pacific Far East tournaments remained closed to them. That changed last school year, and the three didn’t feel as urgent a need to attend “Rumble.”
DODDS had enough funding last January to be able to fly Seoul American, Daegu High and Osan American to Okinawa for “Rumble.” But that funding dried up, and while Bales sent out a passel of invitations, only one team – Debold’s Friars – accepted.
For Kadena and Kubasaki, a “Rumble” field expanded with Guam teams means plenty of in-season competition against wrestlers they don’t normally see.
Guam wrestlers, especially those planning to attend Far East, where international freestyle rules reign, instead of collegiate folkstyle wrestled on Guam, get a chance to narrow their playbook and get used to employing head-in-arm holds, gut wrenches and leg laces, and leave Granby rolls, guillotines and split scissors on the sideline. Nothing but trouble, those folkstyle moves are, in a freestyle tournament.
It would help Guam return to the days when folks such as Dylan Pablo of Guam High, Tim Becker of Simon Sanchez and so many other past luminaries could have more than half a chance at winning Far East gold again.
And it makes me excited for “Rumble” next year. Not to mention, seeing if there’s a way I can be at the second Phoenix Open, where Kadena and Kubasaki wrestlers must “unlearn” a lot of the freestyle moves they know and delve into the intricate world of collegiate folkstyle wrestling.
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Best blossoming rivalry: Thomas Cioppa, reigning Far East tournament weight-class champion, of Kadena, and Tristan Wells of Kubasaki.The two sophomores have squared off seven times, with Cioppa winning four, including three straight during "Rumble." While the 180-pound and 135-pound weight classes loom as this year's equivalent to last year's "World War 215," these two will likely go at it, hammer and tongs, during Far East in two weeks.
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The scoreboard read 25-22 Seoul American. But the official final score was actually 16-9 Daegu High over Seoul American in what had to be one of the most unusual outcomes of a dual meet in DODDS Korea history.
The dual occurred during the penultimate DODDS Korea tri-meet of the season at Daegu’s Camp George, between Osan, Daegu and Seoul.
According to Daegu athletics director Ken Walter and Falcons coach Chris Dickinson, it was discovered after the dual meet that the Falcons wrestlers about mid-way through began hitting the mat out of sequence.
The coaches had been wanting their wrestlers to go against people they’d not wrestled before; but each side’s wrestlers went on against those they thought they were supposed to wrestle, ones they’d wrestled against throughout the season.
“By rule, those matches had to be scratched,” Walter said. “It was a strange chain of events.”
Never again, I hope.
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It would be nice, one year, for DODDS Japan’s outlying wrestling schools, Robert D. Edgren, E.J. King and fledgling first-year program Matthew C. Perry, to get a shot once more at wrestling in this weekend’s Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools finals. Even as exhibition teams.
That had been the case until 2007-08, the year that the Kanto Plain constitution was rewritten to read that only Kanto schools could compete in league in-season and finals tournaments. This occurred following a controversy in a December 2006 tournament at Yokota, where some international school boys wrestlers refused to go up against a DODDS girl wrestler, sparking a gender-discrimination complaint by a parent.
Rewriting the constitution does maintain the integrity of the Kanto Plain league and its rules. And I know as much as anybody else that league rules are league rules.
But it hurts the outlying schools, which only have three in-season tournaments as Far East preparation, compared to six for the DODDS and international Kanto schools. That’s a rather significant advantage for them and a significant disadvantage for the Cobras, Samurai and Eagles in terms of experience level and preparation. Nothing beats mat time, many a coach will tell you.
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Eatery of the week – Dragon Inn at Kubasaki High School, you’ve done it again. The pasta and meat sauce dinner served ($5 a pop and WORTH it) during Friday’s dual-meet portion of the “Rumble” hit the spot the way such a meal should hit the spot. Did not sample the taco rice on Saturday; I like taco rice, but it doesn’t like me.
In-the-running-for-next-week’s Eatery of the Week – Coach Ian Harlow of St. Mary’s International, host of Saturday’s Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools wrestling finals, has promised his tournament’s hospitality room will feature an array of delectable international treats to satisfy the taste buds.
In-the-running-for-the-week-after-that’s Eatery of the Week – The indoor version of the Shima Shack at Yokota High’s Capps Gym, host of the DODDS Japan basketball tournament scheduled for Feb. 9-11. Named for Yokota High’s Mr. Everything, Glenn Shimabukuro, the Shima Shack features so much to please the palate. Chicken bowl. Shima cakes. Shima rice. And standards such as hamburgers, hot dogs, cans of Coca-Cola, etc.
Any challengers? *smile*
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