SALEM, Ore.– With districts on the horizon and their final three-team dual coming up Thursday versus North Salem and McMinnville, practice has turned from working on individual areas to work on to working on Match Control.

For Royal Scots Head Coach Troy Thomas, he felt like Monday’s practice was the perfect time to teach his young team how to use the technique of ‘Match Control’ during this week’s matches in McMinnville and at the Cottage Grove Tournament.

“Now that we’re a point in the season where these kids, they picked up the basic technique now we need to talk about higher level stuff like match control,” said Thomas.

“Controlling the situation, knowing where your at in the match, knowing how much your down by or how much your up by and knowing how to keep control of those leads and know how to make up some points if you are behind.”

Thomas pointed out that this week’s three-team dual will be tough as the Grizzlies and the Vikings are notoriously rough.

But mix in the opportunities of the 26 team tournament at Cottage Grove for Friday and Saturday, Thomas knows that it’ll be a great chance for his team to put the work to good use for districts next week.

“It’ll be a great time to practice our match control,” Thomas said.  “Then when we get to districts, there’s going to be really close matches.  All of those matches are intense they all worth something.

“There’s points on the line, there’s state qualifying matches on the line, there’s district championships on the line and that’s why we have this match control to control those tight matches where teams when by one or two points.”

They’ll have a chance to put their Match Control practice to good use this week.  First with the three-team Greater Valley Conference Dual match with North Salem and McMinnville before taking part in the Cottage Grove Tournament Friday and Saturday.

Though they’ve had a week to heal up, the challenge of ramping it back up for the rodeos ahead where they’re opposition were competing will be there for the Scots this week.

“We need to pick up the intensity,” said Salvador Camargo.  “We were wrestling our buddies (last week) and now we have to get back into real competition because we have North and McMinnville which are tough schools.  They’ve probably been training as hard as we are.”

Camargo also mentioned the possibility of weight could play into a factor as well because of the week away from competition.

But through the challenges, Rubio knows that they have to take it one thing at a time, and that starts with North Salem and McMinnville Thursday.

“The team takes it one competition at a time,” said Rubio.  “We’re focusing on North and McMinnvile Thursday then when the time comes we’ll focus on districts.  We’re keeping the intensity up these next few weeks.”

Jeremy McDonald is a professional sports journalist in the Salem/Portland area and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalist in Oregon with B.S. degrees from Southern Oregon University in Journalism (2011) and Health/PE (2013).  Got a story idea? Email him at jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com or on Twitter at @J_McDonald81!