Parker Sons of Thunder Wrestling

2012 Tulsa Nationals Recap

The most competitors for this tournament since 2001 with approx 1900 wrestlers!  The Expo Center was rocking from the opening rounds in this Tulsa Nationals.  Upsets were the buzz word at the onset of round 2 as many of the nation’s best were getting knocked to the back side of brackets by unexpected upstarts.  PSOT had a lot of success in the 1st 2-3 rounds of the tournament and a lot of kids that wrestled tough on the back side of brackets winning numerous matches but falling just short of the medal rounds.  With 23 competitors from our rosters, we would have liked to have placed more but suffered a lot of injuries to kids that were legitimately in the hunt.

Double nose bleeds, dislocated fingers, shoulders out of socket, concussions and elbow hyperextensions were the norm for this full on war in Tulsa this year.  When the dust settled on Saturday, we had 4 wrestlers that had battled through and placed.  Drew Eller, Mosha Schwartz and Ty Eise overcame the odds and wrestled their hearts out with all 3 of them at the bottom of their age divisions to bring home 4th and 5th place honors.  This bodes really well for these 3 young men as they will be at the top of their age groups next year.  They all 3 only narrowly missed the finals matches with close losses in the semifinal rounds to very tough competitors.  Our lone eagle recipient this year for the club was Jackson Eller in the 8 &Under division.  He beat a former Tulsa Champ from CA in the quarters 10-0 and then won 4-2 in the semis to make it into the championship bout.  He battled admirably in the next 2 matches but came up short in both to take 3rd place overall.

If you were to take only the kids that did not place at this year’s Tulsa Nationals and run a tournament with it, it would have been in the top 3 toughest tournaments of the year.  The road to Tulsa each year is full of hope and expectations and for a lot of clubs is the pinnacle of their season.  However, for PSOT wrestling, we are only getting heated up further as we head into the remainder of our folkstyle year with a lot left to wrestle for in all of the other big tournament series that still are left to conclude.  Take away from Tulsa this year the things to improve on as we continue to evolve into an even better national youth wrestling juggernaut!!!!  Go PSOT!!!!

2012 CK Novice Nationals Recap

The CK Novice Nationals had over 600 entries this year and was laden with 32 man brackets for our PSOT kids to navigate their way through enroute to placing.  9 participated from our club and 5 placed by the end of the weekend.  Isaac Barbosa, Marissa Gallegos and John Woodruff brought home 1st place trophies.  Caden Moster and Heath Helms took 2nd in their divisions.  Zao Estrada, Brett Helms, Blake Branham and Liam Hohenstein made strong showings but came up short of medaling.  This was a great event and for many of these competitors it signaled the end of their rookie/novice careers and opened the door for their transition to only open division competitions from this point on.  Great job by all!

PSOT Top 3 so far in the Race for the 2011 Youthees as Team of the Year!!!!!! Keep up the pressure and garner votes!

Parker Sons of Thunder was nominated for www.youth1.com‘s first ever youth sports awards, The Youthees, for Team of the Year for all of the U.S. in all youth sports categories as selected by the website’s staff!  The other four team representatives were MMA, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey teams.  They also thought we had the coolest name ever for a youth sports team.

It now is decided by votes cast to determine the champion in each of the 5 categories (like American Idol, etc.) so if we want to win it we have to vote and encourage/enlist everyone we know to vote.  As of Monday, 23January, we are in the top 3 as far as voting totals are concerned but they won’t tell us if we’re #1 right now.  You can direct them to the facebook site as well and they can vote from there.  It’s extremely simple.  You can only vote once from any computer though so we can’t stuff the ballot box, unfortunately.  Send the simple instructions out to everyone to do it today.  We have until Jan 31st to vote and solicit votes and then they’ll announce the winners on Feb 1st for this year.  Please, please, please get out there and vote today and get people enlisted to do the quick process to vote.  This is great notoriety for our team just to have been selected after the nominations went in but just like we are on the wrestling mat and at tournaments, we want to win this award.  It was a strong write-up based on our story and resume over the past year with regard to accomplishments as a team and by members of our team.  Here’s how to do it:

Facebook.com/youth1media and then just follow the link to the youthees to vote.  You can spread this via Facebook so all of you FBers out there get it out now and fast to all of your friends out there in cyberspace to solicit them to vote immediately and to spread it out to their contacts.

or

Click directly on the link below to go to www.theyouthees.com and click on the category “Team of the Year”.  The list of the 5 finalists will come up and then you select “Parker Sons of Thunder”.  Finally, once you are on that page, you simply click on the big “Vote” button and that’s it.  Very easy.  No registration required.  Any person with a computer and the internet can do it.  You can do it from your smartphones, tablets, nooks, etc as well and make it one vote in addition to your computers.  Please get going on this today as we only have 2 weeks and Jeff and the coaching staff and parents of PSOT would like to see us get recognized as not only the top youth wrestling club in the country but also the top youth sports program in the U.S.  

Rio Rancho RMN Gold for PSOT!

We had a very good weekend at the 2012 New Mexico National Showdown for Team PSOT.  We had 21 competitors make the trip from our club and 4 of those were double-bracketed in some form or fashion in rookie and open divisions.  Isaac Barbosa won his Rookie Division once again and is on pace to win the Rookie of the Year Award for Rocky Mountain Nationals.  Drew Eller took the Outstanding Wrestler award for 10&Unders with 4 falls in around 5 minutes while winning his division.  Victor Madrid won both his open division brackets that he competed in for 8 & Unders.  Brett Guerreri, Ty Eise, Jayden Woodruff, Parker Benekas and Jackson Eller all took home championship trophies in their brackets as well.  Two other competitors made it to the finals but came up short:  Conner Eise and Grant Stewartson.  Antonio Segura and Malik Heinselman both battled back hard after losses in the semifinals to take 3rd and help the team points.  Tate Samuelson, Isaac Barbosa, Blake Branham and Caden Moster contributed to the team roster as well this weekend in placing in their open divisions and not just giving up when they lost some close matches on the front side of their brackets.  It was a collective effort for those who made the trip for us to keep the kids at the right mats at the right times and have coaches on all the matches with all of those wrestlers in the placing rounds.  Thank you to all that were there and helped out as we did not have Jeff, Sean, Luke or Rocky at this one to help coach due to conflicts with them attending.  We won the 6-12 yr old Team Award with a great effort from all of those on the team roster!  It’s a strong statement for our club when we make a trip to a National Tournament with only about 60% of our Elite Team and still walk out of it at the end of the day with the Team Award!

PSOT Rings in the New Year’s Eve at Who’s Bad

PSOT had an amazing number of wrestlers attend Who’s Bad this year as 37 of our Elite Team wrestlers competed.  Normally this tournament draws around 700 competitors but this year’s attendance was over 1000 wrestlers!  Most brackets were 32 man brackets as a result and so the competition was intense to place.  Several of our steadfast kids during the year did not place as high as they typically do or not at all and this costs us the team trophy as we were only 27 points short of this goal.  PSOT and Pomona Elite kids were all over the different mats in finals and placing matches by the day’s end which bodes well for our chances at Tulsa Nationals as a combined squad.  Ty, Angelo, Drew, Therious, Mosha and Malik won very competitive brackets to take home 1st place honors.  Jett, Tony, Patrick, Jayden and Conner took true 2nd.  Drew brought home the Outstanding Wrestler award for the 2nd tournament in a row for 10 & Unders!  Overall, the team wrestled really well and just came up a bit short for team honors but it gives us a lot to work for at Tulsa and the next few nationals that we have upcoming.  Let’s work hard and talk to your kids a lot about taking a loss in stride and wrestling hard on the back side of the bracket for the good of the team.

Divide and Conquer: Part Two!!!!

PSOT slammed the competition down in El Paso, TX on December 17th when 8 of our Elite team made the trip for the Sun City/Edge of Texas National Tournament there.  This event is the 2nd in the TXUSAW series of events to claim their Triple Crown so several of our kids are in the running for this honor at the end of the season now.  All 8 wrestlers placed and 6 came home with championships.  Mosha Schwartz, Jerzie Estrada, Ty Eise, Connor Eise, Grant Stewartson and Tate Samuelson all took 1st while Jacob Cochran and Quin Samuelson placed top 4!  Great job at this event!!!!

Meanwhile, we had 19 wrestlers attend the inaugural RMN Vegas All-Star Classic in Las Vegas, NV on December 17th, also.  We had just enough to put together a team roster which requires 15 wrestlers even though 2 of those attending were 6 and Under rookie wrestlers and 2 others were in 12U and 15U Rookie Divisions so they could not be utilized for team points.  The result at the end of the day was 2nd in the 6-12yr old division and another team championship in the All-Star Division.  Not bad work at all.  Victor Madrid won his first RMN event championship wrapping up a tremendous first half of the season for this young man!  Parker Benekas beat 2 wrestlers in tight matches in the semis and finals that he had lost close ones to previously in winning his bracket.  Drew Eller pinned all 4 of his opponents in a total of 4:32 on his way to winning the Outstanding Wrestler for 10 & Unders at this event.  A good time was had by all enjoying the sights and sounds of Las Vegas.

And, on the other side of the country, Therious Robison and Ryan Chauvin were participating in the VAC Holiday Dual Tournament in Virginia as representatives on Team Colorado. Thery went 8-2 and Ryan went 7-3 beating some really tough competitors and helping the teams to place higher than they did last year at this event.

It’s a phenomenal effort to split the team and have them at 3 different national events and still come out with amazing results and team trophies.  Great job and let’s get ready to rock the house in Pueblo at Who’s Bad in 2 weeks as we are preparing for Tulsa Nationals in less than a month.

Cradles of Thunder!

The theme for the day at Cheyenne Mountain Jr. High School on December 10th for the PSOT Dual Team should have been “Cradles of Thunder” as our wrestlers continued to place all of the opponent’s wrestlers in every variation of the cradle imaginable. We steam-rolled through the competition at this event enroute to our 3rd straight Team Trophy for this annual tournament. It was a low stress day for the coaching staff as most of the 2nd and 3rd string for the team got numerous matches and even some exhibitions. We are definitively widening the gap between our program and others in the region as evidenced in this tournament.  Great job by PSOT.

Divide and Conquer

No statement ever rang more true as PSOT experienced an amazing weekend that few clubs around the country could have pulled off.  We had 8 core members of our Elite National team travel to the CK Amarillo Nationals and all came back with Eagle trophies for placing 4th or higher.  1 Champion, 5 true 2nd’s, a 3rd placer and a 4th placer.  Meanwhile, back in Colorado, the remainder of the Elite team (as well as several true beginners from the Gold and Cardinal teams) participated in USA Wrestling’s inaugural King of the Mountain Tournament.    Expectations from other squads in attendance at this event were that this would have been the time to overtake the PSOT team for the team titles.  Thanks to a great effort by all of our wrestlers, we were able to spoil those hopes and take the team trophies for 3 of the 4 age divisions as we won the Bantam, Intermediate and Novice Team Awards.  We narrowly lost out taking the Middle School division or we would have had a clean sweep as we ended up in 2nd place in that category.   Here are the individual results:

AMARILLO NATIONALS:
Mosha Schwartz – Champion 12U 64lbs
Jackson Eller – True 2nd 8U 55lbs
Victor Madrid – True 2nd 8U 58lbs
Drew Eller – True 2nd 10U 61lbs
Jerzie Estrada – True 2nd 10U 85lbs
Jayden Woodruff – True 2nd 12U 88lbs
Ryan Chauvin – 3rd Place 12U 67lbs
Jake Huffman – 4th Place 15U 75lbs

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN:
Ty Eise – Champion Bantam 50lbs
Dominick Cortez – 4th Place Bantam 55lbs
Jett Strickenberger – Champion Intermediate 50lbs
Ivan Morris – 5th Place Intermediate 65lbs
Antonio Segura – Champion Intermediate 70lbs
Conner Eise – Champion Intermediate 75lbs
Patrick Allis – Champion Novice 60lbs
Caden Moster – 4th Place Novice 65lbs
Matthew Tobey – 3rd Place Novice 70lbs
Parker Benekas – 2nd Place Novice 75lbs
Isaac Barbosa – 4th Place Novice 75lbs
Kaden Campbell – 4th Place Novice 80lbs
Grant Stewarson – 3rd Place Novice 90lbs
Carlos Vigil-Harrison – 5th Place M/S 70lbs
Malik Heinselman – 2nd Place M/S 70lbs
Tyler Johnson – 3rd Place M/S 77lbs
Brandon Minear – 4th Place M/S 84lbs
Brett Guerrieri – 4th Place M/S 120lbs
Joshua Vigil-Harrison – Champion M/S 265lbs

True Beginner Placers for King of the Mountain:
Drew Espinoza – 5th Place TB Bantam 39-41lbs
Blake Branham – 3rd Place TB Bantam 42-44lbs
Alexis Segura – 3rd Place TB Bantam 45-46lbs
Samuel Hamilton – 4th Place TB Interm. 62-64lbs
Elijah Hamilton – 3rd Place TB Interm. 65-66lbs
Nicole Evangelista – 3rd Place TB M/S 78-85lbs

PSOT “Home of the Belts”

It was a great Thanksgiving weekend for our club and the families that traveled to Lubbock, TX to participate in USA Wrestling’s Panhandle Nationals Tournament.  Everyone would agree that the food at our team Thanksgiving feast following weigh-ins was excellent and the time to hang out and spend time with each other outside of practice and tournament action was a lot of fun for the parents and all of the kids.  This will stay a tradition with PSOT for many years to come.  

We had 24 wrestlers participate from our team and 20 of those wrestlers placed 6th or higher at this national tournament.  The winners of their brackets received a TX USA Wrestling Championship belt for their efforts and PSOT brought home 9 belts total!!!!  This strong showing in the individual categories along with 2 true 2nd finishes and multiple 3rd placers earned us the overall team trophy as well.  The trophy is being engraved and shipped to us by TX USAW.  Our kids truly wrestled against a bag of hammers from all over the region enroute to winning or placing in their brackets.  Having attended this tourney for a couple of years now, it was obvious that word is getting out about the level of competition that attends this event as it was much tougher than last year.  Yet another team trophy for our excellent group of athletes!  

Drew, Jerzie, Jayden, Jackson, Parker, Grant, Mosha, Ty and Ryan all brought home belts for their efforts. 
Of note in those winners and placers:
Mosha won a heartstopper vs a really good kid from LaGente 2-0 in his finals
Jayden beat a RMN Champ from Steel City in his finals resoundingly and was not scored on throughout the bracket
Drew punished his bracket not surrendering any points as well and techfalling another 2010-2011 World All-Star Team member in his finals
Jackson beat a 2010-2011 World All-Star Team member in his finals with a come from behind 6-4 thriller
Ty is now a 2 time defending Champion at this tournament as he won last year, too
Jerzie pinned her semifinals and finals opponents
Parker beat Devynn Sanchez from Pomona Elite for the first time ever 4-3 in his finals (had lost to him 6 times previously)
Ryan never even got challenged by his competition as he dominated on his way to the belt
Grant demolished his bracket enroute to the title
Conner lost his first round match to a Pomona Elite kid but battled all day back on the back side to take true 2nd
 
It was an amazing day to say the least and it was a total team effort as every point was important and crucial to the team award.  We may have set a record for this tournament in taking the most belts home from one team!

Woodruff, Eller and Eaton Recognized at Tulsa for World All-Star Team awards

Drew Eller and Jayden Woodruff were recognized in the opening ceremonies for their accomplishments last year in the WOW series of events as they both achieved first team status on the World All-Star Team for 2010-2011.  Their names will be included on the plaque displayed at the Wrestling Hall of Fame for this outstanding honor for this past year.  They also were presented World All-Star Team singlets and a very nice framed award to go on their walls at home.  Great job, boys!  Cole Eaton was also announced for his inclusion on this past year’s world all-star team roster but was not present to accept the award.  We expect great things out of all 3 of these young men this year and many others on our elite squad.