LJ wrestling: 'I can't see'

An intense Jake Harvey

after dropping his match

to Murphy Fri. afternoon.

(Photo by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

HOLTVILLE--"I can't see. I can't see," Jake Harvey, La Jolla 154-pound wrestler, said, looking somewhat dazed as he walked unsteadily toward his coaches' corner of the mat.

There were 20 seconds left in the first period of his match against Colin Murphy of Rancho Bernardo Friday afternoon, Jan. 29, on the initial day of the Holtville Tournament. Harvey was trailing Murphy 8-1. He took off his headgear as he repeated his words.

Viking coach Kellen Delaney stood up and moved close to Harvey. He gripped Harvey's arm to help steady him. He looked his wrestler right in the eyes. Harvey had a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look.

Delaney listened silently, then he instructed Jake to take some breaths. The whole match had stopped. The referee stood off at a distance. Murphy stayed in the middle of the mat.

After a short time, of a minute or two, Harvey slowly seemed to regain his composure. There were no marks or bruises near his eyes or on his face. He wasn't rubbing his eyes as if they had sustained a blow in combat.

A meet official had brought a bottle of water over for the young man to hydrate.

Harvey, with the referee allowing injury time but also looking at his watch to keep it moving, eventually re-entered the match and lasted the duration, losing by decision 11-5.

Immediately following the incident, Jake's father Mark Harvey, who was filming the match from the edge of the mat, said, "I've never seen that. He said he couldn't see."

Delaney, afterwards, said, "I wondered if he had been choked" and reacted as he did.

When the match ended--with four other matches going on simultaneously in the Holtville High gym, packed with hundreds of coaches and family members--another official brought over another bottle of water to Jake. He accepted it and tore off the cap with his teeth as he listened to his coaches' post-match feedback. He didn't show any unusual signs outwardly. He wasn't wobbly like he was when he said, "I can't see."

He recovered well enough to make it to the consolation round on Saturday morning, day two of the tournament--one of only two Viking wrestlers, with Christophe Naviaux, to make it that far. He lost  by a pin in the second period.

On Saturday morning, Delaney said, "I've never seen something like that. It seemed like he hyperventilated."

An assistant coach for Rancho Bernardo said Saturday morning, "He (Murphy) was my wrestler. I was right there. After the match, the referee came over and talked to me. I wondered if he (Harvey) had hit his head" and was affected the way he was.

Harvey, in the stands, made some reference to his episode. He brushed it off, saying something about "yesterday". He was moving on.

The solid 154-pounder, from limited observation, seems to be an intense competitor. In dual meets, he has appeared very fired up and focused during his matches. Maybe that's why he has several classmates who come to meets and cheer loudly for him.

As he walked off the mat following his match against Murphy Friday, he looked intense. But he bore the normal signs of a six-minute match: fatigue, exertion, drained in energy.