The Match
A match is a competition between two individual wrestlers of the same weight class. The match consists of three periods totaling six minutes, with an overtime round if necessary if the score is tied at the end of regulation. High school matches are one minute shorter than college and university matches - not having collegiate wrestling's three-minute first period. Additionally, college wrestling uses the concept of "time advantage" or "riding time", while high school wrestling does not. Junior varsity and freshmen matches may be shorter than varsity matches in some states. Any differences in the length of time are explained by the fact that junior varsity and freshmen wrestlers are presumed to be younger, less skilled, and possibly in poorer shape than varsity wrestlers, though this may not always be the case. Period lengths vary for age groups below high school and are different from state to state.
The main official at the wrestling match is the referee, who is responsible for starting and stopping the match; observing all holds; signaling points; calling penalties such as illegal holds, unnecessary roughness, fleeing the mat, or flagrant misconduct; and finally observing a full view of and determining the fall. There can also be one assistant referee (especially at tournaments) that helps the referee with making any difficult decisions and in preventing error. Also, a scorer with assistant scorers are there to record the points of the two individual wrestlers. Finally, a match or meet timekeeper may be present to note the match time, timeouts and work with the scorers.
Read more about this topic: Scholastic Wrestling
Famous quotes containing the word match:
“What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few sane representatives to Congress for, of late years?... All their speeches put together and boiled down ... do not match for manly directness and force, and for simple truth, the few casual remarks of crazy John Brown on the floor of the Harper’s Ferry engine-house,—that man whom you are about to hang, to send to the other world, though not to represent you there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When they turn the sun
on again I’ll plant children
under it, I’ll light up my soul
with a match and let it sing....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)