Introduction

Hi I’m Mason Bowden. I’m a student at Houston high school and captain of the wrestling team. My hobbies include wrestling, art, working out, swimming, and video games. I started wrestling during my freshman year at Houston high and making it to state my junior and senior year. Before my senior year had even started I thought it was over; because of a lower back injury I was out for three months. It caused me not to participate in a few large tournaments and miss a lot of matches. I wasn’t able to wrestle again until after the new year. I placed third in the region, which qualified me for the state tournament. The state tournament is held at a agra-center in Knoxville, Tennessee. Having eight regions in Tennessee, and the top four in the region going to state. Each weight class has a thirty-two person bracket, I was the twelve seed in the bracket. My first match at state I wrestled the eight seed from Cleveland high school, I was ill prepared mentally for the match which caused me to lose. Since I lost my first match I was put into a consolation bracket. My second and third matches went very differently, winning those matches got me through the first day of the state tournament. Day two was qualifying day, if you won all your matches on day two you got to place at state. My first match on day two was amazing and probably the best match I had ever wrestled. However, the next match was just like my first match on day one. After that match I was in tears, because it was the end of wrestling for me. If I had placed at state, I would have gotten a wrestling scholarship and wrestled in college. Sure I exceeded expectations, even my coach didn’t think I was going to make it as far as I had, but because I had missed so much of the season leading up to state I wasn’t prepared to wrestle that level of competition at state.