Pinned

"Pikesville's Davon Shambley tries to escape Owings Mills' Julio Trujilo in the 285-weight bout during the Baltimore County wrestling championship finals at New Town High School, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. Trujilo won on a pin to take the title."

No one is perfect and mistakes are made. When that happens, the best you can do is make the most of the situation and hope for the best.

A little over a week ago I was scheduled to cover the Baltimore County wrestling championship at New Town High School.

I was pumped to be covering more wrestling. I feel like I've gotten the hang of shooting it and always trying to better my last attempt at the sport.

Since the championship started at 5 p.m., I figured I'd show up early to hang out with my good friend Matt Roth who I knew was shooting the event for Patuxent Publishing.

He knows the sport better than me and knew he'd be bringing his lights. Sucker.

As I pull into the parking lot he is unloading his car. Here I am only taking in only one body, a 70-200 f/2.8 and my waist pack with some primes. Then you have Roth with a rolling case of lights, a 200 f/2, a 300 f/2.8 and a bunch of other goodies.

As we walked in, I was thinking he is going to show me up not only because he loves to shoot wrestling, but when this gym is dungeon dark, he is going to have a major advantage.

Strolling into the gym I notice there are matches already going on. I was a bit confused, so I asked former Baltimore Sun sports reporter, Lem Satterfield, who covers sports occasionally for Digital Sports, when the championship started.

"Right now. This is it, man," Lem said. Umm. I thought they were suppose to start at 5 p.m., it was a little past 4 p.m. at the time. Great.

So without hesitation, I began shooting. I didn't have much time. I had to make something.

Three matches later the tournament was over. Not to mention, two of the three matches I got to shoot ended in a pin. Roth and I had both been misinformed. The tournament started at 3 p.m., not 5 p.m. Apparently it was listed wrong on their Web site.

Well, I wasn't sure if I had anything worthy to move, but I had to either way. The only good thing to come of this was now instead of quickly transmitting my car under a tight deadline, I now had a couple hours to skim my take and find at least two movable frames.

In the end, I surprised myself, my ability to work under intense pressure and lack of time and still come out with frames that not only told the story, but were catching to the eye.

I guess it pays off to work hard, so when you get to situations like these, you're ready to perform at your best.