Ammon's coaches have always wanted him to do some summer wrestling, but we have always felt that it was just too much. This year, Ammon was pretty excited about the possibility and worked hard to qualify for Nationals and Western Regionals. After seeing how much time and money would be involved for three more tournaments, he decided to only go to Western Regionals in Pocatello, Idaho. The week of June 20, he and I headed up to Pocatello for the tournament. USA wrestling goes by birthdate rather than school grade, so Ammon has always felt we cheated him by having him born in December '95 rather than January '96, but dang-- we didn't really think about wrestling then, we were more concerned with the tax credit! Anyway, those 5 days make a difference. Cadets this year were born in '95-'96, so he was smack in the middle. Ammon hadn't wrestled since the end of the state club season in April, and was a little out of shape, but we told him to just have fun and do his best. We knew what competition he had from Utah, but we had no idea what he was facing from the other nine states, plus his weight was up from 189 and he didn't want to cut so he wrestled 215 and was by far the smallest in his group.
There were some pretty tough kids there, but Ammon was able to win all but one of his matches in each style. He took second in freestyle and third in greco. He felt great about his performance, and I got excited for the high school season to see what great things he can accomplish this year! Way to go Ammon!
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