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I justwanted to get it done, he says of his opening match at one point,adding nothing.The interviewer waits for an elaboration that isn tgoing to come.Dan is not suddenly going to burst into a flurryof enthusiasms.Finally cutting his losses, the interviewer thanks Dan andmoves on.Dan is officially dead air.It may save his life this week.By Thursday evening, the storylines are falling into place.Dan and Jayhave found their way into the newspapers, their quest formallyannounced to the masses, and Dan has responded by winning hisfirst match handily.Under the 1A system, he will wrestle twiceon Friday and need those two wins one earlier in the day, onelater to vault him into the finals.Jay, meanwhile, wrestles his second match of the tourna-ment Thursday evening against Robbie Kramer, the Cedar Rap-ids Prairie kid whom Jay has dominated at points earlier in theseason.This time, though, Kramer takes a different tack entirely.Standing upright, refusing to lean too far in and get yanked intoa low tussle, the Prairie wrestler stays a pace away from Jay andspends his time trying to anger and annoy Jay to the point that Jaymight make a mistake based on emotion.When the two boys get210 / FOUR DAYS TO GLORYclose enough to one another to reach in, Kramer uses the prox-imity to slap the sides of Jay s headgear with his heavy hands, jerk-ing Jay s head around in the process.The rest of the time, he useshis strength to push away Jay s arm every time Jay tries to reachunder Kramer s midsection and find a hold on the side.It s aninteresting strategy, coming on a day in which Jay still feels hor-rible and might be tempted to try and shortcut his way througha match.Jay absorbs the blows and keeps on coming, but at a lowhum.He is working with a cautious referee who disallows one ofJay s signature moves, in which he wrenches his opponent s handbehind his back in an effort to get him turned over and ready topin.The official blows his whistle and re-sets the wrestlers, sayingJay s move is too close to being a physically dangerous one, just asJay is about to apply it and try to finish off Kramer.But it might not matter anyway; Jay looks, sounds and wres-tles as though trapped in a fog.The weight on his chest simplywill not lift.He hacks, heaves, blows out his nostrils, spits somemore; and though he is still dangerous enough to score points, hecannot finish.From his corner, Doug Streicher is again riding Jay verbally,trying as he did on Wednesday to help his wrestler snap back intoform.But, just as he did the day before, Jay already has come tounderstand that he is in a survival mode. Cut him! Cut him!Doug screams, meaning he wants Jay to turn Kramer loose sothat he can take him down again and pile up extra points for theLinn-Mar team.But Jay already has made his decision: conserveand move on.He clings to Kramer down the stretch, again moni-toring the clock. This is fun, he deadpans during one break.Thefinal score is a serviceable but unimpressive 8  2, and coming inthe second round it does nothing to suggest that Jay is ready todominate his way through the rest of the week.The stuff inside Jay s chest is glowing all sorts of colors asit leaves his body.All in all, it could be the worst time ever toBarnstorming / 211be answering questions about reaching for wrestling immortality,which Jay nevertheless is asked to do as he meets with a pack ofreporters after defeating Kramer. You suck, Borschel, you fag!one of the Prairie students shouts from the thick of a crowd,behind the retaining ropes.Jay doesn t even have the energy tolook back. I need to go sit down, he says, and his eyes glanceout across the arena and up into the stands, where his family isseated.It feels a long way off.What Jay would like to do is crawl upsomeplace and pass out for a week.Says Jim, a few moments later, It ll have to wait.The Friday of State is moving day moving up, or moving out.For theNorth-Linn kids, it is a day in which everything feels tantalizinglyclose and the emotion runs near the surface: Win both matchestoday and a wrestler suddenly has reached the finals, the biggeststage of the year.Lose either one, though, and it is a long, slowjourney to the consolation bracket, from which the highest possi-ble finish is third place.And early in the day, Ryan Mulnix beginsthat journey, dropping a tough 7 5 quarterfinal decision to a boyfrom Ogden who manages to hold Ryan scoreless for the entirethird period.Ryan wrestles well; he s just slightly overmatched.This isn t the conference tournament anymore.Still, there are greatly encouraging signs.Ben Fisher trails4 3 in the third period, but he manages an escape and then getsa takedown for the lead, and holds on for the 6  4 victory thatgets him through the morning.Rather incredibly, consideringwhat has happened the last few weekends, that s Ben in the statesemifinals.And Dan will be there, of course, and his brother, too.Dan wrestles a senior from Don Bosco, perhaps the most reveredprogram currently in the state.Dan is ready for him.He scores hisfirst takedown 18 seconds into the match and keeps attacking for212 / FOUR DAYS TO GLORYthree periods.He is relentless and looks fresh, and the Don Boscowrestler, who had only returned from injury fairly recently, justcan t hang.It s a 14  3 major decision for Dan, to go along withthe 8  0 shutout that Nick posts right after that at 145 pounds.So Dan and Nick are there in the semis, and Ben; and in theloser s bracket, Tyler Burkle already is beginning his comebackwith a solid victory.For the most part, it s setting up pretty nicely.Of course, it s early.Sure enough, the semifinal session that evening plays a crueljoke on Doug LeClere and the rest of the North-Linn fans.Asif by some cosmic design, all three of their kids Ben, Nick andDan will be wrestling at the same time.Their assigned mats areclose together, but the parents and fans are still going to have totry to track all three matches simultaneously, and that means theymay well miss important parts of each.It seems almost like a pun-ishment, considering the drive they ve all made and the moneythey re putting up at hotels this week.Ben s week begins to turn the other way as the pressureratchets up [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]