Going To The Mat For Virginia
Before they even headed to Fargo, ND, for the USA Wrestling Cadet and Junior Nationals, two of Virginia's top competitors were already at a disadvantage.
Despite winning a state title and two TCIS championships at Norfolk Academy, Aaron Runzo had suffered a pulled muscle in his side that had kept him from training in the days leading up to the event in late July.
After roaring to nationwide prominence in both judo and women's wrestling in the years before, Marina Lambert wasn't all the way healed from a back injury that cost her her sophomore year on the Indian River mats last season.
But hey, pain's just part of daily life for a high school wrestler.
"I was icing it a lot, and taking care of it, but I wasn't able to work out the last day before leaving for the tournament," Runzo said. "But I had trained really hard, and I was ready to have a good time."
Lambert had already had such a time in the months beforehand; she'd taken the top spots at both a national United States Girls Wrestling Association (USGWA) event in Michigan in March and another meet at the Olympics Training Center in Colorado Springs in May.
She also had some lost time to make up for; she'd skipped the 2007 Fargo event to compete in judo in the Pan-American Games in Brazil, in which she took fifth place (a black belt since 15, she's among the nation's highest-ranked in the martial art).
"I'd been wanting to go (to the Fargo meet) since the eighth grade," said Lambert. "I'd heard about the competition and what it was like. I just wanted to do my best, because I didn't know what to expect."
Another local was making the trip; Caleb Richardson had helped put Grassfield on the mat maps in his school's rookie year last season, taking fifth in the state as a 103-freshman.
Now he had a shot at America's elite.
"It's one of the biggest wrestling tournaments in the country," said Richardson, whose weight often fell into double digits during the regular season. "It's like the end-all, say-all of wrestling."
Up until the tournament, not much had been said about its Greco event, as the style isn't popular in Virginia. In Greco battles, wrestlers aren't allowed to grab their opponent below the waist, and Runzo and Richardson had to get ready for a new type of mat management (Lambert was competing in freestyle, which is more similar to common high school wrestling).
"In Greco, your stance is a lot higher," Runzo said. "You had to stay upright. Once I got used to that, Greco was pretty easy."
They adjusted quickly: Runzo roared straight to the title match in 119 competition, taking his first eight matches. Wrestling at 91 pounds, Richardson got off to a hot start as well, starting out 5-0.
Then he fell to eventual champion Hayden Zillmer of Minnesota.
"It was tough," he said. "I thought I should have won."
He tried to rebound for the third place match against a familiar face; his opponent was Poquoson's Joey Dance, one of Richardson's workout colleagues.
"I'd have been really angry if I lost," Richardson said. "He was going in to win too, so there wasn't any joking. We're friends now, but we weren't friends during the match!"
He came through; after falling behind in the second period, Richardson rebounded for a decision victory for the bronze.
Meanwhile, Runzo prepared to battle defending champion Daniel Deshazer of Kansas for the title.
"I had it set my mind that I was going to win the tournament before I even went there," he said.
His mind might have been playing tricks; though Runzo took the first period 3-0, Deshazer tied the score at the end of the second. As the final period began, Runzo tried to find the momentum he'd lost.
Staying in the center of the mat, he waited for his opponent to make a move. Deshazer kept circling, trying for an occasional grab or throw. In 60 seconds, though, neither matster had gotten a point.
As with Greco rules, the third period's opening minute is held as with a regular match. After this, each wrestler has 30 seconds to score a throw on his opponent. Runzo started on top for the first extra period.
He got some inadvertent help; Deshazer lost points for a few false starts. When the action began, Runzo tried to muscle his opponent up.
"I got locked around him, and I stood up to throw him," he said. When the throw was finished, he had a 3-0 lead.
Now he had to go on the defense. Runzo got down on the mat, and Deshazer went for his own throws.
"He couldn't move me at all when I was on bottom," Runzo said. "He got a lock, but I turned into him as hard as I could and kept my elbows in my chest with a good position, so he couldn't move me."
Runzo glanced at his opponent, and noticed Deshazer looking at the clock. Then he heard the referee counting down the final seconds.
The period ended, and so did Runzo's quest - with Virginia's first national Greco title since Luke Owens brought one to Grundy in 1998.
Warming up for her first match at 165, Lambert tried to look past her painful past.
"I'd been training a lot, and it was just wear and tear on my body," she said of her back injury. "I couldn't do anything, couldn't even bend over."
Or even cheer for her Indian River teammates during their own mat wars last season.
"That was horrible," said the team's only female competitor. "I couldn't go to any of the wrestling tournaments, because I couldn't stand not being able to wrestle."
Over the winter and spring, she helped coach the Indian River Middle School team, where Lambert got her start as a sixth-grader. In February, her favorite charge, Lambert's younger sister Sarah, became the second female to win an individual title in the Chesapeake middle school championships (two years ago, Lambert had been the first).
That's when the pain started to stop for Lambert.
"It was like magic," she said. "I just went to practice one day and it all of a sudden felt better."
Better than she intended to let her opponent, second-seeded Stephanie Tucker of Michigan, feel. It would be the third time the two had met this season.
"She got two points on me at the USGWA, and we went to two periods in (Colorado Springs)," Lambert said. "This time, I didn't feel like messing with her."
She didn't - just eight seconds after the match began, Lambert scored her third consecutive defeat of Tucker.
Lambert followed up her win with a pinfall over Brittany Roberts of Texas But now she had to battle Puerto Rico's Rivera Dayanara, who won the event in 2007.
Lambert scored a quick takedown, but Dayanara tied it back up quickly. About 90 seconds into the match, the two locked up, and Dayanara fell on Lambert.
Lambert's back hit the mat, but she kept rolling, and ended up on top of Dayanara. With just six seconds to go into the period, she held her opponent down for the win.
"I was really, really nervous, fighting the girl who had won it last year," Lambert said. "But then I wanted to go into the national championship and win the title!"
Her aching body covered in ice, Lambert tried to relax for the next hour. Then it was time for her main event. With the song Party Like A Rock Star b laring in the background, she headed out to meet Florida's Katie Crouch, an unfamiliar foe.
The two locked up, and toppled toward the edge of the mat. Lambert maneuvered Crouch out of the ring for a 1-0 lead. Another takedown gave her a 2-0 lead as the period ended.
Seconds into the second, Lambert upped her lead to 3-0. With one more score in the closing moments, her lead was 6-0. Laying atop her opponent, Lambert was surprised when the official called her to the center of the mat.
"I was completely lost, and when he stood us up, I didn't know what he was saying," she said. "When you get in a good match, you don't hear anything. But then he raised my hand, and I was like, 'Oh, cool!'"
Schuyler Brown (Montpelier) also brought Virginia a girls' national title at 139.
Back in town, Runzo readied to re-start his wrestling career with new surroundings; he's transferring to Kellam High, which finished eighth in the AAA state wrestling tournament last winter (Cox, which got fourth, was the only Beach District school ranked higher).
"Now that I've seen what I can do, I'm going to set my goals really high and go out there to win," said Runzo, who named making state competition as one of his goals for his junior years. "I'm going out (to the USA event) next year to win at nationals again."
Lambert, whose squad finished fifth in Southeastern District competition last season, is currently ranked as the country's top 170 competitor by the USGWA. She'd like to go to Puerto Rico for a tournament in October, and keep improving until another relatively large event comes back in 2012 - the Summer Olympics.
Will she be comparing herself to the female matsters in the 2008 Olympics, which begin today?
"Definitely," she said. "The Olympics is a real goal for me."
