Don't Give Up! Believe!

 I will tell you a story of the past two weeks.
My 16 year old son started wrestling about 5 years ago. He developed a love for this sport so much that gave up all other sports to concentrate on becoming a better wrestler. And he worked really hard. Lifting, running, drilling, choosing the sport over parties. Things seemed to be working in his favor and he was winning, with a 27-4 record. He had a dream like goal of making it to states at 106 pounds, and was learning his competition. 4 days before post season, a team mate who was injured or sick more than half of the season challenged him for the spot. The match went into 4 overtimes and with a final score of 0-0 and the teammate won. Heartbreaking! In the world of wrestling weight is a big deal, and this loss meant moving up the the next weight class (gaining 7pounds) with less than a week to prepare. Stinks! The first section round, my son loses the very first match in overtime, by sudden death. Things are not looking good. All that effort! We all felt terrible. I reminded my son he is an all star in baseball, why did he stop playing? It's not too late, preseason just started and he would definitely make the team. The stares I got from my husband and other boys made me realize I should not be saying this stuff. We all had to regroup. This was all brand new turf. My son won the next 3 matches that day, and advanced to districts with the sixth seed. He needed at least one big upset to advance and was not picked by any sports writer to do that. He lost his second match so he had to win 5 in a row to advance. He does! He now moves on to regionals. Every opponent sees him as a fluke. He wins the first match by a pin. His next opponent was a state place winner last year and was projected to repeat this year and was highly favored...the match goes into 4 overtimes and my son wins!  The wrestlers were so physically exhausted they could not stand up after the match. No one could really believe what just happened. No one did believe what just happened. So now my son is in the semis,  wrestling a senior who was the section champ and was also expected to advance to the state level. Another victory for my son with 4 overtimes! Oh my gosh!  A mother's heart is not made for this. In the end he placed SECOND and the local newspaper label him feisty, on a tightrope and a complete surprise. There are now 16 wrestlers left in the state at his his weight...and next week 8 of them will place at the Giant Center in Hershey.  I hope my son is one of them!