EDMONDS — In the midst of a grueling regular season filled with travel and intense competition, 17 prep wrestlers from around the region had the opportunity to take a night off from the grind to celebrate their love of the sport with fellow wrestlers from the far side of the world.
On Tuesday night, a team of all-stars from Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom and King Counties took on a squad of elite Japanese high school wrestlers in a freestyle exhibition in the Great Hall at Edmonds-Woodway High School.
The opening address by Snohomish County Councilman Brian Sullivan — a star wrestler at Mariner High School in his prep days as well as a former participant in the Japanese cultural exchange — set a convivial yet competitive tone for the evening.
“Going to Japan to wrestle in 1977 was the best experience of my life,” Sullivan told the crowd. “Don’t let the friendships and the relationships you make during this experience pass you by. This is a sport that bonds you all together as friends and brothers.”
Scores and stats were kept, but they were but minor details during an evening that centered on the international fellowship of sport and a shared love of wrestling that bridged cultures and an ocean.
“It was a lot of fun for all of the wrestlers. This is a great group of kids that came into this with the right mindset,” said Edmonds-Woodway coach Brian Alfi, who led the local all-stars on Tuesday. “I thought our guys had a great showing.”
It took a while for the Washington wrestlers to find their footing against a team of Japanese competitors who are among the elite athletes in Asia, some world and national champions.
None of the Washington all-stars were victorious, but the Americans became more and more competitive with the Japanese as the night wore on.
The first nine of the evening’s 17 bouts ended in a first-period, technical-fall victory for the Japanese. Under freestyle rules, only a 10-point margin is needed to stop the match as opposed to the 15-point margin in collegiate rules.
No American wrestler scored until Arlington’s Jeremy Nygard, who has wrestled freestyle in Germany as part of a different cultural exchange, caught Tsuyoshi Nakamura in a tilt in the first period, exposing Nakamura’s back for two points.
“Getting in on their legs was really tough,” Nygard said. “They’re just so much more patient than the guys we wrestle here. It was a big shock to everyone to see us just get our butts kicked in the beginning, but it was a really special cultural experience.”
Despite the early dominance of the Japanese, there were moments of levity as well.
When the Japanese sent out 110-pound Ryou Matsui to oppose Everett’s Stephan Erosa in the first bout of the evening, Alfi jokingly countered with Edmonds-Woodway 170-pounder Abdoulie Jatta, whose sculpted physique dwarfed that of Matsui.
“That was Coach (Hideto) Tanaka’s idea last night,” Alfi said. “I think the crowd appreciated it.”
Ferndale’s Sam Cleary finally broke the spell of Japanese dominance in the 10th bout of the evening, as the 193-pounder not only got out of the first round in his match against Yajuro Yamasaki, but lasted the full six minutes in a 13-8 defeat via decision.
“They didn’t like it when we pushed the pace,” Nygard said. “It took us a while to figure out how to attack them.”
Regardless of the evening’s theme of friendly athletic fellowship, these are still competitors who were chosen as all-stars for a reason — they don’t lose very often.
“The word I would use would be ‘embarrassment’,” Edmonds-Woodway’s Spencer Schultz said of the American team’s performance early in the dual. “It wasn’t representative of the effort we should have had as all-stars.”
After Oak Harbor’s Sam Zook and Edmonds-Woodway teammate Ebrima Fatty succumbed via technical fall and Burlington-Edison’s Ty Peth lost by fall, Schultz set about reversing the Americans’ fortunes.
Schultz and Tatsuya Fugii went at it in a physical contest that left each wrestler physically drained and full of respect for his opponent.
Schultz became the second local all-star to lead in a bout — Zook led 1-0 in his match — pushing Fugii off the mat twice for a point apiece to take a 3-2 lead.
Fugii took Schultz from his feet directly to his back for four points late in the match to seal the 9-2 victory, but it showed the local all-stars’ growth during the night.
Schultz and Fugii exchanged hugs and handshakes after their bout, and took photos together after the dual ended.
“It was really cool that the Japanese team brought all of us together. These are guys we compete really hard against during the year, and for us to be all together like this showed how cool it was to be part of something bigger,” Schultz said.
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