Wins and losses are usually most important to those participating and watching sporting events. Wins and losses took a backseat to the love of wrestling at the Japanese Cultural Exchange meet held at Curtis Junior High School on Monday.

The Japanese Under-18 national wrestling team faced off against some of the best wrestlers the South Puget Sound League has to offer. Three of the competitors hailed from Federal Way high schools.

The Japanese team consists of some of the highest ranked wrestlers in Japan and at least one world champion.

Since 1964, Japan has had its national team travel the West Coast of the United States, facing high school teams in events like the one at Curtis.

The Japanese team had already been busy the past week. The team wrestled at Royal High School on Wednesday and won the Gut Check Tournament at the Kitsap Pavilion during the past weekend.

Six of the team’s wrestlers won individual titles at the Gut Check Tournament. All but one of the wrestlers placed in the top eight of their weight class.

On Monday, competitors from Curtis, Kentridge, Kent-Meridian, Kentwood, Orting, Tahoma, Enumclaw, Washington, White River, Decatur and Todd Beamer high schools competed against the Japanese team.

Prior to the matches, gifts were exchanged between the wrestlers, team leaders and coaches.

The wrestling matches were contested under freestyle rules instead of the usual folkstyle wrestling seen in high schools and middle schools in the United States. Freestyle wrestling is usually the more action-packed version of the two.

Once the action began, the Japanese team was dominant.

Decatur’s Leviticus Arizpe was the first of the three wrestlers from Federal Way to wrestle. He is currently one of the favorites to win the state title in his weight class.

His match was the seventh of the night. The SPSL all-star team had not registered a point in any of the matches prior to his.

Arizpe faced off against Yamato Ui. Both wrestlers countered a couple of early takedown attempts, but it was Ui who would be the first to gain control with a takedown. Ui scored eight points, but Arizpe’s defense was too good for Ui to finish the match.

The wrestlers restarted in a standing position and Arizpe capitalized with a quick maneuver and takedown to become the first SPSL wrestler to score in a match.

Ui was able to counter shortly after the takedown and finished the match with a couple of gut wrench rolls for the 12-2 victory.

Arizpe would celebrate being the first SPSL wrestler to score by exclaiming, “two!”, while holding up two fingers as he left the mat, bringing the sizable crowd to cheers and laughter.

Todd Beamer’s Sean Van Earwage wrestled in the second-to-last of the 14 matches. He took on Tsuyoshi Nakamura at 145 pounds.

Both wrestlers put on a showcase of defense as both blocked numerous takedown attempts to start the match. Nakamura finally scored near the halfway mark of the first round, but he could not control Van Earwage for long.

The two battled back and forth for two rounds. Nakamura would take the match 6-0 after the two would go the full two rounds.

After the match, Nakamura raised Van Earwage’s hand as a show of respect. They were the only two wrestlers to go the full time limit.

The final match also featured another Titan as Adrian Avena took on Taisei Matuyuki at 163 pounds. Avena, like the other Federal Way area wrestlers, would make his mark by being the first to accomplish a feat at the event.

He was aggressive to start the match, almost immediately going for a takedown. It worked as he took a brief 2-0 lead, the only SPSL wrestler to lead in a match at the event.

The rest of the match was all Matuyuki as he would go on to win 12-2, completing the sweep for the Japanese team.

After the completion of the event, both teams came together for photos to commemorate the event.

Results:

145 Tsuyoshi Nakamura DEF Bailey Tran (Curtis) 10-0

132 Taishi Barikuni DEF Nathan Moore (White River) 10-0

110 Ryou Matsui DEF Derek Freitag (Kentridge) 10-0

163 Taisei Matuyuki DEF Phy Ly (Kent-Meridian) 12-0

110 Sannshiro Takahashi DEF Andy Sandhi (Kentwood) 10-0

120 Sunao Iwasawa DEF Alex Cruz (Orting) 10-0

132 Yamato Ui DEF Leviticus Arizpe (Decatur) 12-2

185 Yajuro Yamasaki DEF Dagen Kramer (Tahoma) 10-0

185 Tatsuya Fujii PIN Kione Gill (Enumclaw) 0:46

211 Takashi Ishiguro DEF David Camacho (Washington) 13-0

265 Shuhei Nagano PIN Kenny Marll (Orting)

132 Juki Takamori DEF Nathan Moore 10-0

145 Tsuyoshi Nakamura DEF Sean Van Earwage (Todd Beamer) 6-0

163 Taisei Matuyuki DEF Adrian Avena (Todd Beamer) 12-2