The Pendergras Classic no-gi tournament went really well. USG handled the bracketing, and the first matches were underway a little after 11 AM. The last matches were at 5 PM.
Parker won his advanced division, tapping a brown belt and a tough dude along the way. He was beaten by a very game and experienced brown belt named Jake Whitfield in the absolute division. I've fought Jake before, and he's a really nice kid, very technical. We always had fun rolls, and I'm sure that Parker will beat him eventually.
Trey beat Bumpkin in his division, then his knee sort of wonked out while he was grappling with Brandon Garner, a very technical brown belt from N.C.
Brian (Brain) had a couple pretty tough matches against Lamonte Tyler (brown belt) and Brandon Tackett (blue?) from Team ROC, who both were eventually able to tap Brian. He went straight from bracketing to the matches, though, with no warm up, and fought far more experienced guys, so props to him for competing and getting the experience.
I only had one match with a tough wrestler kid from Greenville. I played around a lot in the match, getting the Kimura grip and actually kind of getting a verbal submission, but letting the grip go. To Jeremy's credit, he did get my back briefly (I made sure he had both hooks in, doing a Rick Migliarese-style straight armlock from the back). I escaped and finished him with a banana split, so I felt OK about the match.
All in all, U.S. Grappling (Brian, Chrissy, and I) did a great job keeping the tournament going. We'll need more mats for the next one for sure.
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