On one of the coldest days so far in 2026, the Mexico Lady Bulldogs had their sights on a familiar event, the Chillicothe Girls Wrestling Tournament. This event has grown since Mexico’s first time attending, so much so that the tournament director un-combined this event with their boys’ event that typically takes place on the same weekend. Nearly 80 lady wrestlers weighed in across the 14 weight classes. After speaking with some of the coaches that have bigger rosters listed, several of them indicate they are dealing with the variety of viruses/bugs going around the schools as well as keeping close eyes on match counts as we get closer to the end of the regular season. The reason the Lady Bulldogs have attended this tournament nearly every year over the last several seasons is due to the number of District 2 teams. Outside of Mexico, six (nearly half) of the teams are going to be at the District 2 tournament (which will be hosted by Mexico) next month. With each victory over these District 2 opponents, gives the Lady Bulldogs the ever important seeding criteria.
While the numbers may have been down a little bit from past years due to the aforementioned reasons, there was still some quality wrestling to be had. Being a team loaded with freshmen, the Mexico coaches are taking any signs of progress as a good thing. At this particular event, several of the Lady Bulldogs are turning the corner in their freshman campaign. Overall, 7 of the 9 wrestlers were able to notch at least 1 win on the evening, while 3 of those 9 earned a top 3 finish at the tournament. While most of the brackets were smaller than anticipated, Mexico was able to earn 7 pins/techfalls (6 pins, 1 tech-fall). Kendal Sons led the way for Mexico with 3 pins in just under eight minutes of wrestling during the evening. Along with Sons, Ericka Peck, scored 2 pins of her own and improved her record to 18-15 on the year. The lone champion for the Lady Bulldogs was senior Abigail Bowen.
After receiving a first round bye, Abigail Bowen wrestled the 4th seeded wrestler from Chillicothe. After the end of the first period, the score was 0-0 but that didn’t last long as Bowen was able to score a takedown and a set of nearfall points. She did give up a reversal but was able to escape danger quickly to take a 6-2 lead into the 3rd period. Her opponent chose bottom to start the 3rd period and like she has done on numerous occasions, made her opponent pay for it. She secured the fall 24 seconds into the 3rd to advance to the Finals. Her Finals opponent, was the #2 seed from Versailles. Abigail Bowen wasted no time during this match. She would score 11 unanswered points in the first period with a takedown and two sets of nearfall points. They started neutral again during the 2nd period with Bowen pushing the pace but only forcing stall calls on her opponent. She finally scored a takedown in the closing seconds to earn the tech-fall victory and secure first place in the tournament. In the three years that she’s competed in this tournament, she has won it every single time.
The Lady Bulldogs didn’t get much time off because they had to set up and prepare for their own home tournament on Monday (January 19th), this is the 6th annual Brick City Classic. This tournament has grown each year since its inception in terms of both the amount of teams in attendance as well as the quality of wrestling. There were a total of 187 wrestlers from 23 different teams. Of the teams in attendance, four of them are in Class 2 (Hickman, Rolla, Waynesville, and Battle) and 15 of them are District 2 tournament opponents (just under half the entire list of teams for District 2). It should also be noted that Waynesville is also ranked in the top 10 among Class 2 schools with 4 wrestlers ranked individually in the top 8 in their respective weights. Rolla, while not top 10, has 3 wrestlers ranked as well heading into the tournament.
The competition for the Lady Bulldogs overall was some of the toughest they saw since the Wonder Woman tournament a few weeks ago. However, in the 55 total matches the Lady Bulldogs wrestled, they won the majority of them (30). Out of those 30 wins, 27 of them came via a pin. As a team, this was the second most pins among all of the teams in attendance, only Rolla had more with 44 pins. Individually Mexico was led by their two seniors Abigail Bowen and Alexus Johns in terms of pin count. Bowen picked up 4 pins on the day to secure her fourth consecutive tournament title and improve her season record to 31-4. Alexus Johns also pinned her way to a tournament championship as well with five pins. Two of Johns’ pins were career benchmarks for her personally. During her second round victory she secured win number 150 in her high school career. Later on in the day she was able to secure pin number 100 for her career as well.
In addition to the competition, the Mexico Lady Bulldogs celebrated Senior Night with their aforementioned seniors who have been together on the team since they were freshmen. Between the two of them they have earned over 280 career wins combined and still have nearly a month before the post-season starts and their final post-season run starts Valentine’s Day Weekend.
Up next the Lady Bulldogs will have a singular dual at home versus Centralia. This dual will take place on Thursday evening (1/22/26) at Mexico High School. The team then has a rare weekend off. Their next tournament scheduled is on Friday, 1/30/26 at DeSoto for the Lady Dragon Tournament. Their regular season finale will be the following week, also in St. Louis for the Lady Riley Baker Dual Tournament hosted by Eureka High School on Saturday February 7th.
