MatCats friends and family,

Thank you for your interest in the upcoming wrestling season and thank you for your patience while we figure out what steps our club can do to complete our season. As we navigate though the offseason, we are discovering a few obstacles hindering our year. We are diligently working through those obstacles in hopes to start our season sooner than later.
First, we will be opening up registration to gauge the turnout for the year. I have included the link at the bottom of the page. We encourage you to get registered as soon as possible, that way we can ensure that we will have a practice facility that will be able to accommodate our team. We are at the mercy of the SD School Board on them allowing us into the schools. We are working with a few local businesses and churches to secure a practice facility. If anyone has any input on potential landing spots, please feel free to contact any of the board members.
Second, with Covid-19, we will be taking and following precautions that other clubs have adopted and have been successful in keeping everyone safe. We will have all items for safety outlined and posted in the near future and will discuss them at length during the registration meetings.
Our goal is to run a safe and full season. We appreciate your flexibility with the changes that will be happening this year and potentially during the year as well. We are very optimistic that the year will start and end with very few hiccups.

Preston Plautz
President

AJ Spirit wear is taking orders for Matcat Branded apparel Starting today thru 12/1/2019, group login is “matcats”. If you are unsure of Sizing AJ Spirit wear will be at our registration meetings with blank apparel to try on.
www.AJspiritwear.com

Come join us in McHardy Park for the second annual outdoor wrestling tournament.

There will be food vendors in the park and plenty of space for the whole family to roam around the two mats we set up for the wrestling tournament.

Make sure to bring your lawn chair…and your neighbor to support the Brandon Matcats Youth Wrestling Tournament.

July 26th at McHardy Park in Brandon, SD 721 McHardy Rd, Brandon, SD 57005
Register on Trackwrestling.com $20 per wrestler,

spectators are free.

Weigh in’s at 3:30PM – Wrestling starts at 5:00PM sharp
Open to the Community – Food Vendors onsite

No set weight Classes, Wrestlers will be grouped by Weight and experience level into 4 man Round Robin brackets.   

Tots – 01/01/2013 -12/31/2015

Bantam – 01/01/2011 – 12/31/2012

Midgets – 01/01/2009 – 12/31/2010

Novice – 01/01/2006 – 12/31/2008 ( No Seventh Graders )

Registration Deadline 07/25/2019 11:59PM CST

Click here for link to trackwrestling: https://www.trackwrestling.com/tw/opentournaments/VerifyPassword.jsp?tournamentId=474688132

From the Mats to the Gridiron

Courtesy: Seminoles.com
Release: 11/19/2014

Florida State’s leading tackler Reggie Northrup takes pride in the way he takes down opposing ball carriers.

“I take a lot of pride in it,” Northrup said. “I know it’s a skill set that I continue to work on and get better at.”

The junior linebacker from Jacksonville, Fla., credits some of his tackling prowess to wrestling in high school.

“I used to watch that WWE stuff, but I was interested in the real kind of wrestling” Northrup said.  “I tried it out and I happened to be pretty good at it. Your leverage, it helps make your hips better. Your pad level, your able to get lower and being able to grab and wrap up.”

Not only was he a two-time Florida state qualifier on the mat, but he immediately saw dividends on the football field.

“Wrestling in high school took my game play to a whole other level,” Northrup said.  “Especially being a linebacker I’d just go out there in games and start doing things better.  My fundamentals, I was able to stay low and read stuff.”

“Usually wrestlers are tough guys,” head coach Jimbo Fisher said.  “Individually mentally strong guys because there’s nobody else out there to do it with, it’s you and him.  They’re usually great grip guys, very strong in their hands.  When they get their hands on someone, they usually tackle very well.”

And his teammates certainly notice the effects as well.

“On the field he’s just a wild man,” red-shirt junior Tyler Hunter said.  “He would run into a brick wall.  I can definitely see the wrestling on the football field.”

“Reggie’s a very low center of gravity guy,” senior Karlos Williams said.  “He’s just explosive in the way he tackles through the hips and on the rise. I remember going through camp he caught me a couple of times when I was going through the hole and my pads were a little bit too high and I was like I would hate to have to hit this guy on a Saturday night when I was wearing opposite colors.”

“All I know is that he hits hard,” senior Desmond Hollin said.  “I don’t know about wrestling, I just know he’s one of the hardest hitters on the team.”

Now thanks to what he learned on the wrestling mat, Northrup can bring even more pain to opponents when he takes them to the ground on the football field. Something Seminole fans have come to enjoy on a lot from Florida State’s leading tackler. 

Layne Herdt, Seminoles.com.