Fort Osage freshman Jauzlyean Gray was dominating her match in the Class 2, 135-pound state championship bout last February at Mizzou Arena in Columbia.
Midway through the 135-pound title bout, with Gray holding a comfortable 13-0 lead, she laid on her back while favoring her left shoulder, which was in a brace. She used the remaining injury time allotted before earning a 22-4 tech fall win to earn her first state championship.
Before that match, Gray had been battling a shoulder injury since January. Following the Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships, she found out she had been wrestling with a torn labrum for most of the season.
Even while being at a disadvantage, she still finished the season with a 49-2 record and a state championship.
Gray recently had surgery on her left shoulder and will have to rest for six weeks before she can begin physical therapy. She said it will be six months before she can start wrestling activities again, but should be ready to wrestle again by the start of the 2026-27 Folkstyle season.
With the way she wrestled at the state tournament, it was hard to tell that she was injured at all. Before her championship win, she dominated all of her matches, getting a 18-1 tech fall win, a 15-4 major decision and a pin in her first three matches.
The freshman faced multiple challenges during the season. It was difficult to perform some of the moves she had become accustomed to using.
“It affected my duck unders, slide bys and sweeps and my leg defense,” Gray said. “I do a lot with my left shoulder. It stopped me from doing some moves to avoid feeling the pain.
“After I found out I had a torn labrum, I thought, ‘Oh, wow.’ I was wondering how long I had wrestled with it like that. It answered some questions as to why some of my moves weren’t working.”
But she kept pushing through and put together an elite-level season. One of her two losses came against Lille Banks of Menasha, Wis. in the Wonder Woman Tournament, an event that featured some of the best girls wrestlers in the Midwest. It was a match in which she led 12-8 before getting pinned in the third period.
That loss added extra motivation for her to push hard for a state title.
“Me and her were scrapping and going back and forth scoring points,” Gray said. “In the last 30 seconds I reached and she threw me to my back and stuck me. It was a learning experience to wrestle cautious in those situations. She is a really good wrestler.
“I made a big change on my bottom work and my mindset. I worked on my bottom a lot and I was pushing my lungs because I knew I was going to have some of those three period matches with some of the best girls in Missouri. I was working on getting my mind right in those situations.”
The future is bright for Gray as she came to the Fort Osage program as a prodigy. She’s the sister of former Fort Osage boys 2025 state champion Colby Gray and she was a seven-time USA Wrestling Youth State Champion, a multiple Missouri National Team member and a WOW All-Star team selection.
As an eighth grader took first in her division in the Pan-American Games, the 2025 USMC Women’s National Championships and Tulsa Nationals.
Even before she entered high school, she practiced with the team, and from Day 1, head girls wrestling coach Jesse Reser knew she was going to be an elite-level wrestler.
“We definitely knew she was going to be special coming in,” Reser said. “Last year, she was in the room a lot just for practice. She was just an eighth grader beating up some of our returning medalists.”
“You know a kid’s going to be special when that is happening. We would have her go against the boys sometimes. We wanted to do anything we could to make sure she was getting the work that she needs. We had an idea she was going to be pretty dang good.”
And she showed what she could do at the high school level and displayed her effectiveness in the neutral position.
“I really like her ability to get a takedown from any position on the mat no matter who she is wrestling,” Reser said. “That is one of her biggest strengths. She had the most takedowns on the team. I can’t remember how many she had off the top of my head. If she was able to push the pace, she was able to get takedowns at will.”
After she recovers from her shoulder injury, Gray said she plans on working hard toward a big goal of hers. But if she can win a state title while nursing an injured shoulder, the sky could be the limit for the talented freshman when she’s healthy.
“Being a four-time state champ has been a goal of mine since I started wrestling,” Gray said. “I will go for an undefeated season, too. That loss at Wonder Woman will motivate me to get an undefeated season.”
