C-M girls finish eighth, Newton ninth at Saydel Invitational

DES MOINES — Colfax-Mingo’s Lily Webster found herself down big in her final two matches at the Saydel Girls Wrestling Invitational on Monday.

But late reversals in each match set up dramatic finishes and Webster’s pair of rallies moved her to the top of the 100-pound bracket for the second straight season.

“I just needed to get my confidence up,” Webster said. “I didn’t take many shots and waited for something to happen. Eventually I realized I needed to do something so I tried my best to get back in it.”

Webster’s championship at 100 was the only first-place finish from the area, but Colfax-Mingo’s Emma Cook placed second at 235 and Newton’s Stella Cupples (115) and Ashlyn Van Manen (190) both were second at their weights.

Most of Colfax-Mingo’s girls entered the junior varsity tournament, which took place in Saydel’s smaller gym. But six Tigerhawks produced 83 points and an eighth-place finish in the 19-team field. Newton scored 78.5 points and finished ninth with its nine wrestlers.

“We wrestled well. There’s a lot of tough teams here so it was good competition for us,” Newton head girls wrestling coach Chad Garvis said. “I knew it was going to be tough just seeing who was going to be here.”

Class 2A No. 4 Southeast Polk won the tournament with 234 points. Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont was next with 158 and the rest of the top five included Clarinda (143), Des Moines Public Schools (132.5) and the Ankeny junior varsity (120).

Perry (112.5) led the next five in sixth and Raccoon River Northwest’s junior varsity was seventh with 90 points. Host Saydel (66) finished behind Newton in 10th.

“The girls did great,” Colfax-Mingo head girls wrestling coach Erin Hume said. “Yes, as a coach we’d love to have some matches back, but we wrestled six girls on the varsity side and placed in the top 10. We won some great matches and even in those matches we want back, we saw great things and they gave us some things we can take back to practice and work on.”

Webster, who is ranked sixth in 1A at 100, was 3-0 for the day with two pins, while 1A No. 6 Cook was 1-1 with one pin at 235.

Cook, who had two byes to the semifinals, lost 5-3 to 1A No. 8 Ella Ray of EBF in the finals.

Devan Chadwick and Hadley Millang both finished fifth for Colfax-Mingo at 110 and 145, respectively, and the rest of its lineup featured Brianna Freerksen at 130, Alauna Wells at 155 and Emmalyn Buchman at 190.

Newton’s Cupples and Van Manen both lost to state-ranked wrestlers in their finals matches.

Cupples (8-4) was 2-1 with two pins at 115. Her lone loss came by fall to 2A No. 3 Jackeline Rodriguez-Acosta (6-1) of Southeast Polk in the finals. She trailed 4-0 at the time of the pin in the second period but it was scoreless after one.

Class 2A No. 7 Van Manen (8-2) finished 2-1 at 190. Her lone loss came by fall in the third period to 2A No. 4 Josie Bishop (16-1) of Southeast Polk.

Van Manen won her first match 2-0 and had to rally to win in the semifinals. She trailed 3-1 after one but rallied to tie it at 3-all after two.

After two stalling penalties and an opponent’s reversal, Van Manen was down 7-3 with 17 seconds to go in the match. But a late reversal by Van Manen flipped Clarinda’s Jaiden Olson to her back with 6 seconds left and the back points gave her a 9-7 victory.

“The girl put a leg in and when they do that, you just hip down,” Garvis said about the late six-point move. “That’s what I told her to do.”

Kylee Adams (8-1) suffered her first loss of the season at 110. She placed third with a 3-1 day. She had two first-period falls and a 19-3 technical fall win.

Adams, who is currently ranked fourth at 100, lost 5-4 in the semifinals to EBF’s Abigail Durflinger, who is ranked No. 9 in 1A at 115.

Adams led 3-0 with a quick takedown 5 seconds into the match but her only other point the rest of the way came on an escape in the final few seconds. She was hit with two stalling calls in the third and Durflinger got the winning takedown with 31 seconds to go in the match.

“I think she got freaked out by the stalling calls before the late takedown,” Garvis said. “For better or worse, she’s wrestling at 110 right now. She can wrestle anywhere because she’s a good wrestler. But I think it would help her and benefit her to get down to 100 or 105.”

Johana Cerna (8-4) placed fourth at 140, and the rest of Newton’s varsity lineup featured Julianna Maldonado-Hidalgo at 120, Alivia Conley at 125 and Ella Machin at 170.

Machin was 2-2 with two pins, while Cerna won her first match of the day by fall.

“I would have liked to seen a few of our girls do a little better, but it’s to be expected for some of our more inexperienced wrestlers,” Garvis said. “It was kind of a letdown for them though. It makes me want to help them get better.

“We don’t lose at Newton, we learn. And if you take the losses seriously and watch the videos, you’ll learn a lot quicker.”

Colfax-Mingo’s Webster trailed Des Moines Public School’s Lemuna Gurisho 3-1 after one and 6-1 after two.

Webster’s rally started with an escape and then she was given a pair of stalling call points with 47 and 23 seconds to go in regulation.

Gurisho extended her lead to 9-4 with a takedown with 13 seconds to go, but Webster used a headlock to score a five-point move in the final 3 seconds to force overtime.

Webster needed just 18 seconds to get the winning takedown in SV-1. It was her only takedown in the match.

“I definitely saw it coming the whole match. I was waiting for the right time to do it,” Webster said. “I needed to catch my breath, stay focused, be more energetic and show her that I was the stronger wrestler.”

In the championship match, Webster fell down 7-2 after one to EBF’s Hollie Roberts. The deficit grew to 9-2 in the second, but Webster (24-2) again used a headlock to turn her fortune.

She eventually got Roberts to her back and scored the pin in the second period.

Webster knew nothing about Roberts before the match. It was the first time the two wrestlers had faced off against each other.

“Last week at Williamsburg she was down late and couldn’t rally back for the win, and I think that might have lit a fire in her to ensure that feeling doesn’t happen again,” Hume said. “Sometimes athletes like to say, ‘oh, I have to wrestle her’ or they get worried about what their opponent is going to do. We as coaches have to get our athletes to understand that, no, they have to wrestle you. We have to get them, Lily in particular, to understand she’s a great wrestler and other girls are worried about wrestling her, not the other way around. We’re still working with her on that, but we know she’ll be ready when the end of the season gets here.”

Cook (21-3) finished second at 235 after a 1-1 day. All three of her losses this season have come to ranked opponents.

Chadwick (22-5) was 3-1 with two pins and finished fifth at 110 and Millang (22-7) was 2-1 with two pins and took fifth at 145. Like Webster, one of Millang’s wins came after facing a large deficit in the match.

“One thing that has stuck with me as a coach was something my high school coaches (Bryan Poulter, Bill Edgar and Jim Jenkins) told us, ‘get six or go six,’” Hume said. “That means, go get the pin or continue wrestling hard for six minutes. That’s how we train, and I’m very proud of our girls for living that on the mat. If you’re always wrestling hard, you’re never out of it.”

Chadwick’s lone loss was a 9-1 setback to 2A No. 7 December Paw of DMPS.

Buchman made her season debut and was sixth at 190 after going 2-2 with two pins. One of her losses was 6-5. Freerksen (14-10) was 1-2 with one pin at 130.

Notes: Cook could face EBF’s Ray at the Chariton tournament this weekend. They could face each other multiple times this season. “We’ll for sure work with Emma on what we as coaches see she can change so the outcome is in our favor next time, but knowing her, she’s already figured that out on her own,” Hume said in reference to Cook’s loss to Ray. “We’ll support her and continue pushing her to be her best. She’ll take something away from it for sure, but we’re not rewriting the season after one loss. She needs these tough matches and is glad to have them.” …The tournament was set up in a way that if a wrestler did not make the semifinals, they could not wrestle back for third place. … Six Colfax-Mingo wrestlers won their JV brackets, including Allison Minteer (105), Karmylia Snyder (125), Lily Brenner (140), Emma Beyer (170), Samantha Wheeler (190) and Emily Cook (235). Minteer, Snyder and Beyer all were 3-0 with three pins, while Brenner, Wheeler and Emily Cook finished 2-0 with two pins.