The wrestlers put their weeks of preparation and hard work onto the mat on Tuesday, December 5. Their first duel was at home against Hot Springs, South Dakota, and set to go down starting at 5:30.

The air outside was frostbitten and the streets were icy, but the stands were still filled with excited fans. The edge of the stage where the student section is designated to sit was filled with seniors, most of which have been waiting for years to get their shot at a front row seat. The cheerleaders dressed in blue leggings and custom-made white wrestling shirts sat criss-crossed on the floor awaiting the beginning of the matches.

As I arrived, the gym was full of chatter. The lights were still on and the wrestlers weren’t out yet. I decided to sit in the stands where the pep band normally sits, just until it was closer to when the matches would occur. I later migrated down to the edge of the stage for the reveal of the varsity wrestlers.

Autumn Hoff
The lights shut off in one quick motion, leaving only the dangling spotlight above the mat lit. The DJ, set up on one side of the gym, blared Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. The tune may be a familiar one to those that attend football and basketball games at which the Alliance Pep Band play. The familiar roar of the crowd echoed as strobe lights of white and blue flashed near the DJ, and the varsity wrestlers came running out. They circled the mat in the center before beginning to warm up.

The announcer then went through all of the weight classes and named every wrestler on each team, even if the weight class was open on one team. After all of the announcing was done, the matches commenced and I hurried to sit along the edge of the mat by the cheerleaders.

Autumn Hoff
Each match was its own. Some were impossible to get great shots of because of such swift motions and fast pins. Others were difficult simply for the fact that the two opposing wrestlers spent a lot of time gripping each other’s arms and going around in circles.

Although the Bulldogs won all but one of their matches, there were a couple points in certain matches that our wrestlers were close to being pinned, creating a conflict as to whether or not I should continue to snap the button.

In one of the matches, the opposing wrestler got a bloody nose early in the round, causing a quick time-out. The nosebleed kept bleeding through the tissue stuffed in his nose and left a slight stain on the back of Bailey Hood’s dominantly white singlet.

Once all of the matches were done, the Bulldogs pulled a win, with a final score of 69-4.