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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville High School wrestling and girls soccer teams got together Thursday night for an annual fund-raising competition for both programs that's become a much-anticipated event.
It's called the Battle of the Bones, an annual chicken-wing eating contest between the two teams that drew a large crowd to EHS' Jon Davis Wrestling Center.
The contest is a relay race between the wrestlers and girls soccer players, with two members of each team attempting to consume a bowl of Buffalo-style wings and drummies as quickly as possible before running back to send another team member to a table to repeat the process. Whichever teams have their members finish first wins the contest and gets to hoist a trophy with a pair of bones in it.
“We needed a win,” deadpanned Tiger wrestling coach Jon Wagner after the event. “The kids were a little disheartened, they weren't believing in their coaching – they put it on us a little bit. We needed this win bad.
“The girls brought everything they had; they had a lot of energy in their coaching – it was a tough win. I had to stay impartial – my daughter's a senior soccer player. I hate to see her lose like that.”
All kidding aside, Wagner thought the evening was an enjoyable one for all in attendance. “It was a good time,” Wagner said. “I hope everybody enjoyed it – we made some good money for both programs. We call it a fun-raiser – we have a little fun and make a little money; we sure appreciate all the help we had.”
New Tiger girls soccer coach Abby Federmann also enjoyed the competition. “We just got beat, but you know what? There's always next year,” Federmann said at the end of the evening. “We did have a really good showing of our freshman potentials, so it was really exciting to see all the underclassmen come out and get really excited about the soccer program.
“It's a great event; we have a good time, the community gets to come out and eat (traditional St. Louis-style barbecued pork steak dinners). Instead of just fund-raising and asking for money, we try to bring everybody together, have dinner together and help both of our really awesome programs with the wrestling and soccer teams.”
The wings themselves were donated by Market Basket of Edwardsville and prepared by students at EHS.
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