Red-hot Sports in Redmond

Redmond's Catherine Kelly celebrates after pinning Sedro-Wooley sophomore Andrea Iversen in just one minute, 44 seconds. Kelly went on to place fourth in the state at the 112-pound weight class.

After winning only one match last year as a sophomore wrestling in the double-elimination Mat Classic, Redmond’s Catherine Kelly, the first female wrestler in school history, was determined to make it to the podium at state this time around.

“I really wanted to finish fourth or above,” she said.

The odds were clearly stacked against her. In order to do that, she had to beat Stanwood’s Casey Mather, who had beaten Kelly twice already in the postseason.  Just like she’s been doing all season, Kelly and her coach Paul Mullen knew Mather’s tendencies, learned from her past mistakes, formulated a game plan and pulled off a 3-0 victory to seal no worse than fourth place.

Congratulations to her for making history for the Mustangs!

And it was my first time at the Mat Classic and oh my what a spectacle with mats everywhere and thousands of screaming fans.

And after watching what happened next doorat the 4A state gymnastics meet, there has got to be a better way to run the event. Redmond’s star gymnasts Akari Matsumoto and Cristal Spinrad were unlucky enough to get drawn DEAD LAST out of everyone in 4A and were forced to sit around for over FOUR HOURS after they completed their warm-ups before they had a chance to compete for real.  How would the local basketball team do if they had a four-hour delay after pre-game shootaround and all of a sudden were thrust into the action?

If it doesn’t seem fair, it isn’t.  But it’s a by-product of the sheer number of athletes in the competition and the fact that they not only combined the 2A and 3A heats (64 athletes total) but they only had one set of equipment for each event so everyone just rotated and it went sooooooo slowly.

My fix?  Hold 2A and 3A in a separate location, I mean there are tons of gymnastics clubs around that will lend their equipment for the state meet.  If this is not possible, do it kind of like Swimming, do ALL the 2A, and then after they’re done, give the 3A ample time to warm up and then go through that division, and end with 4A.  This way the longest anyone will be sitting around will be about an hour instead of four, and I’d also give athletes more than the obligatory 30 seconds to warm up before their heat starts. 30 seconds isn’t even long enough to loosen up your muscles and take a few deep breaths.