All-American effort

FARGO, N. D. — When Katie Rowles enters the wrestling room at Jay County High School, she looks up at the wall and sees the names of all the boys and girls who have medaled at the state tournament.

While she still has yet to check that achievement off, she now has something tangible to hold onto.

Rowles became the first Jay County High School wrestler to earn All-American Honors after placing third in the 88-pound weight class of the 2024 U.S. Marine Corps 16-and-younger Nationals freestyle tournament hosted by North Dakota State University in the Fargodome over the weekend.

“It was a great experience and I’m glad that God gave me the opportunity to go and compete at that level,” Rowles said. “It was just unlike any of the other tournaments I’ve been to so far. There were 30 mats set up, which is really crazy. I’ve never been to one of that size.

“I got to meet a lot of new people from Indiana and from other states and just see how they prepared for the tournament and what they do all season.”

Rowles (who was seeded third) opened the tournament in the quarterfinal by defeating Cadence Grulla of Georgia with a 6-2 decision.

With the defeat of Grulla, Rowles guaranteed herself a top-eight finish in the field of nine wrestlers. Being top-eight secured a spot for Rowles on the podium and All-American Honors.

The junior is the first Jay County wrestler to earn All-American Honors from the national tournament.

“That’s pretty cool,” Rowles said. “I didn’t realize until after the tournament that Jay County never had anyone that was an All-American before. It’s a great feeling because I’ve looked up on the wall of our state placers and everything and all those people have done such great things and I did something that they didn’t. It sounds kind of full of myself, but I just think it’s cool to have that opportunity.”

After the initial victory, it was the 88-pound semifinal match against Lily Enos of Illinois that took Rowles out of title contention. Enos was awarded the first point on a step out call and later took advantage of a shot Rowles took that opened her up for a takedown.

The Jay County junior had a shot near the end of the second period – the freestyle 16-and-younger tournament’s matches only lasted for two, two-minute rounds – but the clock ran out before she could get the tying takedown and fell 3-1.

Enos took also upset second-seeded Kayla Pastika (Minnesota) to reach the semifinal, and later took down No. 1 seed Brynn Engle (Wisconsin) to win the national championship.

“Her effort is tireless,” said Indiana State Wrestling Association women’s director and coach Jason DeLois. “She’s hard on herself when she loses. I just talked to her a lot about defeats and how to really make them fuel for future victories.

“After that, I think she really took it to heart and started to learn from that. … I think her being able to process the loss on a national level has improved her ability to execute moves at a high level and is getting much better.”

DeLois’ stance shows in how Rowles finished out the tournament.

In the semifinal round of the consolation bracket, Rowles came out and dominated No. 5 seed Fern Jewett of Massachusetts in a 9-0 major decision.

“I was just ready to earn the next best thing,” Rowles said. “I couldn't win the tournament anymore, which obviously was my number one goal there, but if I could come back and get third, I wasn’t going to settle for anything (less).”

To do that, Rowles picked off the N. 2 wrestler out of Minnesota, Kayla Pastika, for the 8-2 victory in the consolation championship.

The third place finish was the highest for Team Indiana, which finished with 43 points to place 13th out of 33 competing states. Team Pennsylvania took the top spot with 157 points.

Even beyond the bragging rights of performing well in this tournament, Rowles thinks that her success at the state and national level can help her as she prepares for her third season of high school wrestling.

“I think it really helped me realize that I can wrestle with the best girls in the country,” Rowles said. “I may not be able to beat all of them right now, but I can definitely hang in there and fix a few small things and maybe next year I can.”