Missouri Wrestling
Mexico Lady Bulldogs Inaugural Season-Part 10
By: Jonathan Bowen
Getting out of school early on a Friday is usually a welcome event for most teenagers going to school. Start the weekend early or go on a quick vacation somewhere out of town with the family. However, for the Mexico Lady Bulldogs it meant that work had just begun. They had to travel across the state, make weight later that afternoon, and compete at Liberty North High School on Friday afternoon and evening.
At Liberty North there were thirty other teams originally scheduled to attend according to trackwrestling.com. Most of these are from the western side of the state but District 4 opponents Kirksville and Macon will be in attendance as well as Francis Howell Central. Francis Howell Central is in Mexico’s Sectional and could provide some potential matchups should any of the Lady Bulldogs make it past Districts. Other notable teams the Lady Bulldogs could face-off against would be Harrisonville, Oak Park, Staley and the host Liberty North. When it was all said and done there were 23 teams that showed up to compete.
Katherine Bowen placed 1st at 102 lbs. Katherine had to wait awhile as she drew a first round bye but when round two came around she went right to work pinning her opponent from Lafayette early in the third period. She would go on to beat her final opponent of the evening 8-3, securing first place in the bracket.
Abbigale Drew placed 2nd at 122 lbs. After getting off to a rough start by losing to District 4 and conference opponent from Kirksville, Abbigale rattled off back to back pins to secure her second place finish. During the second round, she set a personal record by recording the pin in 16 seconds.
Kaylynn Pehle placed 1st at 132 lbs. Kaylynn started off strong with a first period pin and kept steamrolling throughout the rest of the evening. She eventually scored two more pins on her way to securing her first place finish. Coach Senor liked her aggressiveness in each of her matches.
Choice Foster placed 5th at 143 lbs. Choice had a tough draw at this tournament with not one but two Harrisonville girls (returning team state champs) along with two other experienced girls. The first year wrestler keeps plugging away at it and will eventually find her stride.
Brett Iman’s placed 5th. This is her first tournament after being back from being out of the lineup and appeared to be rusty. After talking with her teammates and coach, she’s glad to be back in the practice room and being with her teammates. The goal is to get her ready for Districts and see what happens. She did go the full six minutes for the first time since before her absence but came up short in that match and lost by a score of 8-3.
The ladies had to travel all the way back home and got back around midnight. There is a very quick turn around as the Lady Bulldogs leave for Brookfield at 5:30 a.m., who’s hosting the Gary Haag Classic. The name Haag is very familiar to the Lady Bulldogs as one of their boys’ teammates at the 220 lb. weight class is Gary’s grandson, Deacon Haag. According to Google Maps, this will require the Lady Bulldogs to travel an estimate of just under 550 miles, compete in two tournaments, in just a little over a 24-hour time span. Add this to the nearly four hundred miles that they traveled to Winnetonnka and back (along with the round trip to Willard), we’re looking at close to 1500 miles in a week. We will see what these ladies are made of by the week’s end as they maintain their weights and recover from competition and travel.
Next week (January 24-30) the girls have to travel to Kirksville, Marshall (this is their second trip there in the past month), and Seckman before coming home to kick off their first postseason as a team by hosting the District 4 Girls Tournament. Kirksville is in District 4 along with the Lady Bulldogs and the Seckman Tournament will feature some potential sectional matchups, again, should the ladies move past districts.
