Members of Leviathan Wrestling Club participated in the Peninsula Middle School League Finals Tournament on Saturday, May 9 at the Red Morton Community Center in Redwood City. Close to 200 middle school wrestlers competed representing schools from Palo Alto, through the Peninsula, to San Francisco. Several members of Leviathan were unable to attend due to illness.
Kennon MacKinney, who has been wrestling for just a few weeks, gave it his all, but lost to teammate, Rylan Jimenez, in consolation semi-finals. Both boys are new to the sport and faced tough competition from older boys with more experience. Rylan finished with a 4th place medal.
Mateo Jimenez won his first match handily, but in the next match he wrestled against a boy from Jane L. Stanford Middle School who was a State placer. That boy went on to win the tournament. Mateo fought back to the consolation final round, where he faced an opponent from Presidio Middle School in San Francisco. Mateo started the second round on the bottom, in referee’s position. He jumped up off of the whistle and threw all of his weight against his opponent’s grip. Mateo broke free to earn an escape point, and then he charged the Presidio boy with a powerful blast double, knocking him on his back. Mateo won the match by pin seconds later to finish with a third place medal.
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Both Presidio and JL Stanford – as well as several other middle schools - have wrestling programs that are run out of their schools, and those athletes learn how to wrestle in PE classes. By the time kids from those schools are in 8th grade, they have had 3 years of wrestling instruction. Despite a big experience gap, Leviathan’s middle school wrestlers were able to bring home medals from their league finals thanks to both their amazing athletic ability and the hard work of their outstanding coaches, Danny Woo, Alek Butler, and Sam Ayala.
Leviathan Wrestling Club is beginning Freestyle wrestling instruction this week. Practice is 3:30-5 MWF in the Terra Nova mat room. Kids from 3rd- 8th grade are welcome to come check out youth wrestling.
