Sweet Home wrestlers and fans will get an early start on the sport next week as a South African cultural exchange team arrives in Sweet Home.
Sweet Home Coach Steve Thorpe said the team of 18 wrestlers and two adults is bigger than usual, but that is why they are coming in the fall instead of the more typical spring or early summer.
“It’s spring break for them,” he said. “They are not going to be missing school. This is when they can come. This is the only time they could bring this large of a group.”
The team will be mostly Cadet wrestlers, 15 to 17 years old, with one 19-year-old. Two are girls.
They arrived in Oregon on Oct. 1 and will stay through Oct. 16, wrestling in Sweet Home at 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8. Cost is $2.
They will face a Valley All-Start team that will include “multiple” wrestlers from Sweet Home, Lebanon, Albany, Corvallis and Central Linn.
“Each of their kids will get at least two matches,” Thorpe said. “On a tour like this one of the things they make sure is that they want matches.”
The visitors will make stops in Newberg and central Oregon before arriving in Sweet Home, then will move on to Tillamook, Thurston and Eugene. While here, they will get a chance to visit the high school and will get a tour of a logging site, along with other local attractions.
Thorpe, who has traveled to South Africa twice and hosted three teams from there, said South Africa “is not a hotbed of wrestling, where people constantly come in there. They travel a lot to find the best competition they can find.”