Missouri Wrestling
Mexico Lady Bulldogs Inaugural Season-Part 4
By: Jonathan Bowen
The Lady Bulldogs traveled down to Jefferson City on Friday afternoon to CapitalCaptial City High for a five-round scramble. Some familiar teams including both of the Jefferson City schools (the Cavaliers and the Jays), Tipton, Smith-Cotton, and Fatima. Mexico has seen all of these teams at least once, including their narrow defeat the night before against Tipton.
This would another series of firsts for the Lady Bulldogs as team scores would be kept for this tournament and team hardware would be awarded to the top two teams. Whereas in previous meets they have not. While Tipton ended up edging out the Jefferson City Jays by 1 point. The Mexico ladies with their smaller squad finished in a respectable 6th place just behind the Camdenton Lakers. Coach Senor had the ladies stay to watch the team trophy presentation and had them realize in the back of the heads that they had almost beat Tipton the night before in a dual with one of their teammates still out with an injury. Speaking with Coach Senor during the tournament, he stated that his team both as a whole and individually.
The following were the individual results along with some commentary on their matches.
Katherine Bowen placed 4th at 107 lbs. She faced both the Camdenton and Tipton wrestlers for the third time and second time respectfully. She started off with a strong win over a Jefferson City wrestler. But then a string of defeats to both of these repeat opponents. However, Coach Senor stated that she is creeping closer to beating those girls (both of them being upperclassmen and one is a returning state qualifier). It will be interesting to see when it comes to the district tournament.
Abbigale Drew placed 1st at 122 lbs. Using the momentum from her wins from the night before she made short work of her opponents by pinning them both, with one being in just over a minute. Coach Senor is very optimistic about this freshman girl and is enjoying watching her develop.
Kaylynn Pehle placed 6th at 132 lbs. This was her first action after coming off an injury and was very upbeat about being back wrestling with her teammates. She gave solid efforts each time out but knocking off the rust takes time as she’s been out of competition since before Christmas Break. Coach Senor was impressed with her mental approach and the way she handled the losses that she took today, knowing she needed to knock the rust off.
Ivy Perez placed 5th at 137 lbs. She’s a first-year wrestler and is understanding what the means. She was in several situations for the first time in competition and with more mat time, she’ll be aware of these different situations and work herself out of them.
Choice Foster (1-5) placed 2nd at 143 lbs. Foster is also a first-year wrestler and like the previously mentioned first-year ladies, Coach Senor is seeing subtle improvements that he’s hoping will pay off by the end of the season. Like what was stated previously with Perez, Foster needs mat time and that will be coming in the next few weeks with at least two or three competitions scheduled each week before the end of the month.
Brett Iman placed 2nd at 151 lbs. Brett notched her first career win on her way to a second-place finish. She pinned District 4 opponent from Jefferson City, which should benefit her when it comes to the post-season. Coach Senor was proud of her efforts in practice recently and those efforts were on display in her performance at this event.
The Lady Bulldogs will have a quick turn around and will be traveling west to Conference foe Marshall for their girls’ tournament tomorrow on January 9th. This will be the first time this season the Lady Bulldogs will face most of the scheduled opponents (according to trackwrestling.com), including Marshall, Wright City, Brookfield, California, Carrollton, Gallatin, and one of the powerhouses in Missouri Girls Wrestling, Lebanon. The other opponent will be familiar, Southern Boone, as they beat them in a dual on Thursday. After that, Mexico will be back in the practice room for a couple of days before competing again.
