Turtle toppled

ROCHESTER — During the 155-pound championship match, top-ranked Mallory Winner wrestled against someone that was called “Turtle” by her friends and family in the crowd.

Winner finished off the match by keeping her in a position that resembled a turtle to let the clock tick down to zero and claim the first semi-state championship.

The Jay County High School girls wrestling team had three athletes punch their tickets to the state competition on Friday at Rochester during the first girls wrestling semi-state.

Joining Winner (22-0) will be No. 13 Lina Lingo in the 135-pound weight class and No. 7 Emily Manor at 140.

“All of the girls that advanced put in a solid effort,” JCHS coach Eric Myers said. “In the state placement matches, I felt we wrestled pretty well. We didn’t get all the results that we wanted, but the effort was there. That’s the way it works sometimes.”

Winner earned the sole championship for the Patriots, resulting in her getting a top seed for the state tournament that will be held Friday at Kokomo.

Despite battling illness, the two-time state champion — she won her first two titles at 160 — breezed through the opening two rounds to clinch a berth, beating both opponents by fall in 85 seconds combined. The semifinal match against New Haven’s fourth-ranked Kailey Bussard (26-4) gave a little bit more of a challenge, but Winner ended it 37 seconds into the final period.

The championship match against No. 2 Rhaigyn Trenary (23-2) of Eastside was a different story.

The Jay County junior struck first with a single-leg takedown 1 minute, 46 seconds, into the contest. While trying to wrestle aggressively, Winner nearly pinned herself, but avoided the fall while allowing a reversal and a near fall with 40 seconds left.

Winner said she talked with her dad, JCHS assistant coach John Winner, about how Trenary would try to roll out when Winner put a bar on her, so she was prepared to keep rolling to avoid the self-pin.

An escape by Winner ended the first period 4-3 in favor of Trenary. A late takedown and reversal in the second period kept the Eastside freshman ahead 6-5 going into the final period.

Winner chose to start the final period neutral and got a quick takedown to take the lead. With 1:30 left, the official called an injury timeout for Winner who was struggling to breath and quickly ran to a nearby trash can.

When the match resumed, Winner took care of business.

“As a wrestler, when I see that with a girl, I would try to take advantage,” Winner said. “As the person winning the match, I knew that I just had to really grind it out. If I had to sit there for a minute on her hip, I would just grind it out. 

“Even though I could hear them yelling, I had to stick to who I was and win how I know how to win.”

Winner got one final takedown and held Trenary to the mat to win the 155 bracket 9-6.

Lingo (22-9) and Manor (21-3) both advanced to the ticket round on byes. Manor made quick work of Rochester’s Alexis Haughs (12-9) with a pin in 1 minute, 36 seconds, with a state berth on the line.

Lingo’s ticket-round match against Tri-Central’s Danya Wiseman took some extra effort. The JCHS junior wracked up a 14-2 lead before rolling Wiseman over for a fall with 1:03 remaining.

Lingo lost in a semifinal match that went the distance with No. 9 Alexis Spaulding (26-5) of Columbia City 16-10 before countering Akira Jones’ (13-16) shot in the third-place match and working it into a pin with 7 seconds left in the first period.

Lingo, who was also dealing with illness, fought through to keep the third-place match as short as possible to avoid the bottom seed.

“I just told myself that this pin needs to be short,” Lingo said. “If I lose these matches and don’t place high enough, it’s going to hurt so much more than the physical pain.”

In the 140-pound third-place match, Manor and East Noble’s No. 10 Kahmya Bell (16-2) went into four overtime periods. Bell won by a sudden-death escape five seconds into the fourth overtime period.

“We both had such good defense, neither of us could get anything,” Manor said. “That last period she got out and that's when I was too tired to keep holding her down.”

Three more Patriots made the ticket round, but failed to clinch a state berth. 

No. 7 Katie Rowles (26-5) fell victim to a tough tournament draw in the 100-pound bracket, losing a 4-3 decision to sixth-ranked Angelina Clay of Lakeland (20-5).

Maleah Parsons (18-10) struggled to find offense in the 145 quarterfinal, losing 17-1 to New Haven’s No. 2 Olivia Bhode (31-2) in a technical fall. Madison Gage (7-10) fell to Rochester’s Grace Hiroms (21-4) 26 seconds into the 155-pound quarterfinal contest.

“Today we had a lot of girls get eliminated and you hate to see it because they put in a lot of time and felt like they deserve to go on,” Myers said. “Katie was not quite an ideal draw … an early takedown kind of decided that match. … You have to move forward and take the good out of it and take the bad and learn from it.

“Maleah didn’t have a great draw but that is because she struggled last week. I felt like she was wrestling really well today and if she would have finished off some of those matches last week she would have been in position with a better opportunity to advance in this one.

“In the state tournament series, you set yourself up for the next week, and you can’t take anything for granted.”

Suffering first-round losses were:

•105 — Sophia Thomas (5-17) by a pin in 1:24 to Ashlyn Brown (3-11) of Peru

•115 — Tatianna Willis (10-8) by a pin in 1:51 to No. 12  Makayla Withrow (21-5) of West Noble

•120 — Calie Yates (8-11) by a pin in 1:22 to Hannah Early (17-13) of North Miami

•120 — Ellie Wendel 91-6) by a pin in 35 seconds to Kyra Doran (16-5) of Rochester

•125 — Willow Hardy (16-12) by a pin in 5:05 to Christian Lewis (9-10) of Prairie Heights

•170 — Tessa Miller (5-17) by pin in 25 seconds to Anna Maszke (1-2) of Central Noble)

•190 — Sydney Huftel (0-4) by pin in 2:44 to Katelynn Leckrone (14-13) of Manchester