Chapter 9: Day Two

Sunday was similar in ways to the first day, I was awake and up much earlier than I wished, but I would have to deal with it like I had the day before.

The good thing was I felt just as good, without any strains or bruising that might hamper me today.

I followed the same procedure with food and water, having enough to keep my energy up, but not too much that would weigh me down when things became tight, which I really hoped wouldn’t happen, but doubted I would be that lucky.

That day we made it to the venue on time, everyone else also kept better timekeeping so the bouts would actually start on time today, rather than late like had happened on Saturday.

I was a bit disappointed to be last in my half of the draw to be fighting, that meant having to wait around and getting ready later than I would prefer, but did give me the chance to watch everyone else first.

There were a few more skills used today that hadn’t been yesterday. That pleased me, since I hadn’t seen anything before now I shouldn’t be able to overcome, but the better skills being demonstrated now would mean that the fights would be a much better contest.

I only warmed up a half hour before my expected fight time, I had seen some others doing warm ups since they first arrived, they either would be tired by the time they fought, or would have cooled down enough that they wouldn’t be in the best condition when their own bout began.

My first competitor was one of those, he struggled with his flexibility, which I knew was better than what he was showing, from what I had observed of his bouts the day before. Because of that I had no trouble avoiding the majority of his offense, his defense was better than some but was not good enough to stop me from scoring when I moved in to counter his attacks on him.

For the first time so far, he did manage to catch me with a punch, but it had only been a reflex reaction punch when I was hitting him, it stung a bit, but wasn’t enough to put me off getting another kick through to his ribs, which would give me a good advantage in points.

When he worked out that he wasn’t scoring with long distance attacks, he switched and tried to get in close to mix it up in a punching contest, I didn’t want that, since with his longer reach I might lose out in the confrontation.

So I used my speed to keep away from him as much as I could, when I would run out of room, I would use a few leg combinations that caught him as he tried to move in, increasing my overall point advantage for the bout, and giving me the time to open the gap between us again.

He then got desperate, throwing a kick at me and launching himself forward after it, in an attempt to put me on the back foot. It was unfortunate, but as I avoided his kick, I kicked my own leg out to try and keep him away when he launched forward, my foot caught him just under the chin and he crumpled to the floor.

I was a bit worried, it hadn’t been my target, but with his diving towards me, his body angle had changed, so instead of his chest I caught him on the chin.

As was usual when a competitor got hurt, I turned to face away from my opponent and nealt down in the ring, so I didn’t know how he was doing, but knew it might be serious since paramedics had been called and they moved in to check him out.

I sat on my heels for several minutes, from what I could see on the spectators’ faces in my field of vision, there was some concern to begin with, but then they became more relaxed, so I hoped he was OK.

Although he had come back around, he was in no condition to keep on fighting, so the officials called the fight in my favor.

That caught everyone’s attention, it was unusual for the juniors to have a knockout happen, even if it had been accidental, normally it was only in some of the adult heavyweight bouts when it occasionally happened.

I caught a lot of startled looks as I was awarded the win, most couldn’t comprehend little old me having the power to knock out a bigger opponent.

Although I was through to the semifinals, that wasn’t how I wished it had happened.

I went to find my opponent to apologize, he was really good about it, saying that it was his own fault, he had always been taught not to dive in, but he had realized he was behind and had done it in his desperation. He even offered me a handshake and wished me luck in winning the whole thing, saying he didn’t think I would have any trouble in getting to the final.

The next bout I watched showed that I shouldn’t have any trouble in my next bout, neither had a defense I shouldn’t be able to penetrate. The offense was better than I had faced so far, but nothing better than I hadn’t had to defend against before, although I thought that Patrick had a better offense than either of these two.

I was able to watch Patrick’s next bout, he overcame his opponent with ease, making his way into the semifinal in his half of the draw.

My semifinal came up about an hour later, this allowed us to have as much rest time between rounds as possible. This was to ensure we were in the best fighting condition before the bout started, although I would had preferred to keep on fighting, since it meant you cooled down, then had to do another warm up.

In the semi-final I needed to use a lot more movement than any of the previous bouts, the opponent kept up his attack with leg combinations mainly, I just ducked and swerved around everything, I hadn’t been able to land a counter for the whole first minute. But using the attacks he was attempting was going to use up a lot of energy, the latter part of the fight he didn’t use so many kicks in his combinations, he was also slowing down as his energy levels diminished. That allowed me to get in couple of counter punches which should have scored points.

When the fight was done I was a little worried, I had spent most of the bout only blocking, without showing any sort of offence. The officials scoring the fight might have given him points when he didn’t even hit me, just due to his aggressive style and my passive defense.

The bout was my first split decision of the competition, I was given the victory by three votes to one. It was a relief to win since it could have easily gone the other way if the officials had been convinced his attacks had actually scored against me, even though I had blocked every attack he made.

That put me into the finals, and it was just up to Patrick now to beat his opponent to make a rematch of our state final.

His opponent was really good, the best I had seen up to now, but Patrick was up to the challenge, he was able to use his great attacking prowess to overcome his opponent defense, to set up the rematch. I was really pleased about that, it showed our state was the best in the nation, with both of us in the final coming from Georgia.

In this tournament we had an hour to wait before the final, this allowed the spectators to watch the other semifinals going on in the other divisions of both adults and cadets.

Unlike most other finalists, we sat together and watched the other semifinal fights going on, we talked about who we thought would win, I got more right than Patrick which annoyed him, he asked me to explain how I knew who would win, but I wouldn’t tell him, which got him even more frustrated, that suited me, because if that transferred to our bout, he would be more likely to make mistakes which I could take advantage of.

He showed that wouldn’t be the case though, when we split up to get ready, he was back in control of himself, giving me his spiel that he had a strategy that would beat me this time.

When we were called forward to fight, I was surprised at the sudden hush that fell over the arena. That was until I realized that there was no other activity going on in any other rings.

Each final was to be done individually so that everyone, both spectators and other competitors could watch all the finals, without being distracted by other fights.

After the niceties of the art were completed, we prepared ourselves for the bout. The final would be different in that it was two rounds instead of one, which upto now all the other bouts had been.

The first round started differently than I expected, Patrick unusually didn’t go all out in attack, being much cagier and not leaving himself unbalanced with his normal acrobatic combinations, this made it much harder for me to try and get a point here or there on the counter.