Ryan Wilson won two matches by ippon today - yeah, Ryan!!! Mika Licudine also won two matches by ippon today - at only 5 years old and under 30 pounds, she is about the size of a lot of Thanksgiving dinners and won two matches with pins. Her matwork looked awesome. Big brother Gabriel Licudine placed third and never gave up. Gina Levine fought four matches and was in a three-way tie. They pulled numbers out of a hat to decide the places so she got third but we were VERY proud of her. Julia DeMars got kicked into the 9-10 year old division for the umpteenth time. She fought very hard. It is tough being moved up, which is probably why when she DOES get to fight 8-year-olds she usually wins.
I was VERY proud of all of our judoka at the tournament today. It takes COURAGE to get out there and fight and all of them showed it. Every one of them gets better every time they fight. What an absolutely great bunch of kids.