Wrestling Misconceptions

As many of you may know, I am a wrestler for Blair. We have already started our season and had a few teammates place at a tournament this weekend.  We graduated a bunch of good seniors last year, but we still have a good team that is looking to have an even greater role in Montgomery County wrestling in the future. Wrestling is a tough but rewarding sport, and once you get into it, you just can't get enough.

Most of you, however, have not even considered wrestling to be a sport and have forgotten about it.  Many of you believe it is too weird to watch, even though you probably havn't seen a match. You probably think the sport is too harsh and violent, and maybe even slightly homosexual. Although it could be those things, (except for that last part) it is really interesting and it helps build character. 

Wrestling is one of the toughest sports because not only does one have to go to practice like other athletes, but they also have to cut weight and make sure they don't gain too much.  Someone could argue that hockey or football is tough, but like the link says, those guys get to have a heaping plate of dinner after practice while wrestlers go to bed hungry.  Wrestlers sometimes lose a crazy amount of weight (myself included) just to face smaller people, which makes it more likely they will win. 

Since the sport is extremely tough, wrestlers build bonds with their teammates who are facing the same situation and they create tight friendships through it, as well as respect for each other for sticking with it. 

The sport is also very rewarding because its not your team beating another team, it's you beating one man in a fight.  On a hockey or football team, your team could be winning games without much individual contributions; but wrestling is a completely solo sport.  If you win or lose, it's all on you and not your teammates.

Wrestling is a tough sport, and it's also really fun to watch.  Sometimes, people get slammed to the mat, or there could be a sudden death overtime match that draws down to the wire.  It's cuper exciting to watch, and because of this, I urge any of you readers to go out and see a wrestling match or tournament or something.  You won't regret it, and once you get past the initial strangeness of the sport, you'll find yourself loving it.

Redskins making a comeback

On Thanksgiving, the Redskins pulled out their second consecutive division win against the Dallas Cowboys, 38-31.  The previous sunday, the Redsking beat the Eagles 31-6, and they looked really good coming out of the bye-week.  Quarterback RGIII threw for 311 yards with four touchdowns and only one interception against the Dallas defense, and running back Alfred Morris scored the other touchdown.

Although the Redskins looked outstanding, their defense didn't do as well in the second half.  At halftime on thursday, it was 28-3, but the defense gave up four touchdowns in the second half.  This leaves room to believe that although the Redskins are looking strong, their defense needs to get stronger and deal without key players such as Brian Orackpo and Brandon Meriweather. 

The Redskins have to face the strong giants, who have already defeated them earlier in the season.  If the Redskins do win against the Giants, they will be tied for first place in the division, and possibly with Dallas as well.

Capture The Fall

This is my capture the fall video, and it's called Fallen Leaves and Baseball. In it, there are some shots of trees turning red, orange and yellow, as well as some postseason baseball.

The point of this video is to describe what fall means to me personally, and whenever i think of fall, i think of the trees, but also postseason baseball.

This year, i had the good fortune to go see two local teams play in the postseason: the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles.  Those games were the first of playoff baseball i have ever been to, and both teams havn't really been that competetive until this year.

Before, the Nationals have never made the playoffs or even got second place in their division.  The orioles have been to the playoffs before, but not in at least the last decade. It was pretty cool seeing them both develop and become such great teams, and also the games were awesome (even though both the games i went to, my team lost).

Anyways, i hope you guys enjoy my video about what fall means to me.

Although the Redskins were supposed to be noticibly better this year with rookies such as Alfred Morris and Robert Griffen III leading the offense, they have fallen short of their expectations.

The defense has been terrible this year, ranking just about last in the NFL.  This could be due to the losses of Brian Orakpo and Adam Carriker, two cricial Redskins defenders.  Orakpo suffered a torn pectoral in week two, and Carriker a torn quad, and both won't come back this season.

Players such as Ryan Kerrigan and London Fletcher have been trying to carry the weight of the defense on their shoulders, but have been unsuccessful in doing so without Orakpo and Carriker.  Since the defense has been unable to stop opponents, the offense has to deal with the pressure it presents. 

When the defense is giving up long drives and touchdowns, the offense can't afford to waste possessions.  They have to score as much as they can every game and often with less time than they should have.

The Redskins have so much potential but are under .500 due to a lack of a strong defense and a huge amount of pressure that the offense cant handle.

 

Last year, Blair's varsity football team went 0-10: one of their worst records in the past twenty years.  After that, everyone has developed the opinion that Blair football is going to be terrible forever and that there is no hope. 

 

This could not be further from the truth.  This year, the players have been working as hard as they can to make sure they dont repeat last year's record. We have already won two games, and in both of the games, the team looked really strong.

 

At the beginning of the season, teams like BCC and Quince Orchard had no trouble at all defeating us, which left many to believe this year would be bad too.  But, we defeated long-time boulavard rival Northwood, which helped boost our spirits after 15 straight losses.

 

The JV football team, unlike their varsity counterpart, has been playing strong both this and last year, which leaves us to believe that the varsity teams for our junior and senior years are going to actually be competetive within the county. 

 

At this point, all we can do is work hard and make sure we get stronger as a team in order to bring competetive football back to Blair.

Maryland Sports Pt. 2

Well last week I talked about how the DC- Maryland area was very excited over the nationals and orioles being in the playoffs and RGIII. However, Both the nationals and the orioles were eliminated from the playoffs within two days of my post.

Although it may seem bad, it is foreshadowing of what is to come.  The Nationals organization has even stated that they didn't plan on going anywhere this year, but in years to come they would.  With such young talent in Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg, and others, it is nearly impossible to imagine they won't make the playoffs again.  Not only will the talent get even better, but now they know what it takes to play pennant baseball.

With the Orioles, it is a very similar story.  They have a young team with people like McClouth leading their efforts, and there's nowhere to go but up. 

The only part of my post that was proven true last weekend was the excitement building around RGIII.  Not only did he lead the team to a home victory over Minnesota, but he also ran for two touchdowns, and one of them was for over 70 yards to seal the win.  Today they are playing the Giants, a division rival, and Griffin has already thrown for one touchdown.  Another rookie, Alfred Morris, has been phenomenal as well. He has led the ground attack with nearly 60 yards in the first half alone and has been breaking tackles and staying afoot like I've never seen.

Sadly, the Redskins are the only one of the three teams mentioned to still be playing. However, with all the young talent on all three teams, the next decade of DC and Maryland sports will be overwhelmingly exciting.

Maryland Excitement

Now I'm sure all of you are aware of the situation with professional sports teams in the area.  Both the Nationals and the Orioles made the playoffs, and the Redskins have a new, Heisman trophy winning quarterback in Robert Griffin III.

For the Nationals, most fans are extremely excited because not only is the team less than ten years old, but it is also the first time a Washington baseball team has made the playoffs since World War II.  The team, led by Davy Johnson, are achieving something that was not supposed to happen for a few years to come.  The team shows hope and promise, with members like Stephan Strasburg and Bryce Harper dominating the playing field at such a young age.  The Nationals finished with the best win/loss record in baseball, which is extremely exciting because only too years ago they were losing more than 100 games a season.

Harper, a rookie, is only 20 years old now, and he played most of the season at 19 years old.  I don't know if you realize, but that means he could have potentially been a senior in high school just last year and he is now a starter for a major league team.

Strasburg isn't too much older, but two years ago when he was first brought up, he suffered an elbow injury that required tommy john surgery: a surgery that requires someone to lose a substantial amount of time in recovery.  He returned this year from his surgery, and he dominated the playing field whenever he got the chance to start, with barely any exceptions. 

The Baltimore Orioles have become a pretty surprisingly good team over the course of this year.  Unlike the Nationals, they do not have much young talent and many believed they would be lucky to not finish in last place.  However, they came out strong with Buck Showalter leading them to a wild card victory and an exciting playoff berth against the New York Yankees.

Lastly, Robert Griffin III is a star college quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy for being the best college player that year.  The Redskins drafted him and he is now the main guy lining up under center.  However, he suffered a concussion in the game against the Atlanta Falcons last weekend, and he will be forced to miss a few weeks to recover.  His backup, Kurt Cousins, is also a rookie the Redskins picked up in the draft, and he is a great filler while RGIII recovers.

All three teams cause everyone who is a fan to be ecstatic over the new talent that have shown.  I have been lucky to see the explosive talent they bring to the table first hand by going to Nationals and Orioles Playoff games, as well as a Redskins regular season game, and it was amazing.  On Friday night, the Nationals face the Cardinals and the Orioles face the Yankees for game 5 of the Divisional Series', and the Redskins play the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, so tune in to witness the excitement yourselves.