With Taylor’s dad, Tony Everson holding the log, Taylor Everson (l) gets ready to battle Wellesley Howard Larsen at logrolling practice. Both Taylor (U10) and Wellesley (U17) won medals at the Harold Fisher Logrolling tournament held at the Hudson, Wisconsin YMCA.
With the popularity of log rolling growing every year, competition gets tougher and tougher at the tournaments, and the annual Harold Fisher log rolling meet held this past weekend in Hudson, Wisconsin, was no exception.
The Cook County YMCA North Shore Rollers sent six kids to the meet, and two came away with medals, while four kids competed at a high level in deep fields of fast-footed rollers.
In the U10 division, Taylor Everson battled her friend, Libby Magnone of the Lacrosse YMCA team for first place. The match went to the 3-log with Magnone taking first place 3 falls to 1.
The younger rollers start on a 1-log, the biggest log in diameter, and once they have finished 2 minutes (combined time including falls) they move to the 2-log, 3-log, 4-log, and even the 5-log, the smallest log which spins very fast. As the logs get smaller the competition gets hotter and hotter with big falls and some great saves as kids almost fall off and then somehow regain their balance and stay on the log.
Last year Dominick Wilson won first place at Harold Fisher in the boys U-10 division, but this year he had to move to the U-13 age group. He rolled 10 matches, winning 7 of them and ended up a strong 4th place, just missing out on a medal.
Teammate Luke Johnson also rolled in the U-13 division and won two matches but Luke was the only roller to give every kid at least one fall in his 10 matches. Both boys were exhausted by the end of the meet, but came away with a lot of experience and a strong idea about their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses.
Paige Everson also moved up in competition this year, rolling in the deepest field, the U-13 girls division. Paige rolled great but she is now the youngest in her age group and many of the girls are older, bigger, and stronger and have more endurance. Still, Paige won half of her matches and ended up in 5th place.
Like Paige, Robin Henrikson is new to the U-13 division. Henrickson probably has the fastest feet of any North Shore roller but lacks meet experience. Once she learns a few tricks she is going to win a lot more matches. Henrikson won several matches in the round-robin tournament and had a great meet.
Wellesley Howard-Larsen battled Anjali Krongard of the Hudson YMCA team for first place in the U-17 girls division. Wellesley lost 3 falls to 1 in a good match. The girls are now 1-1 for the year and should have many more good matches to come.
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