After the long grind of the regular season, 11 girl wrestlers in the Platte County area have punched a ticket to state with a top-4 individual finish in the District 4 Tournament on Feb. 5.
Park Hill freshman Alison Gonier, above, has clinched a spot at state wrestling as the freshman was the runner-up in the 120-weight class at districts on Feb. 5.
The Park Hill girls’ wrestling team had a great district performance, finishing in third place out of 50 teams with 112 points and will have four Lady Trojans competing for a state medal. Platte County will be sending three wrestlers to state as the Lady Pirates finished in fifth place overall with 97 points.
Park Hill South had 63 points, which was good enough for 14th place, when the Lady Panthers had two athletes qualify for state – including the third straight appearance for junior Maddie Kubicki (141). Mid-Buchanan, who has a co-op team with North Platte, ended in fourth place with 110.5 points and the Lady Panthers will send a pair of girl athletes to Columbia, Missouri, on Feb. 17-19.
Park Hill talented freshmen duo of Allison Gonier (120) and Angelina Vargas (115) have kept their seasons alive when Gonier was the runner-up and Vargas won a district title. Ahead of the state tournament, Vargas has only lost one match in 34 tries, while Gonier is 34-4.
The other two Lady Trojans who will be moving on are junior Eve Herlyn and senior Taryn Johnson. Herlyn was the runner-up in the 141-weight class and Johnson finished in third place in the 125-weight class.
In the championship match, Herlyn fell to Kubicki from Park Hill South in 57 seconds. Johnson took down Platte County’s Elizabeth Humburg in the third-place match in 43 seconds.
Platte County had the district champion in the 194-weight class as Kaylyn Munn finished in first in the 194-weight class for her second career district title. Munn pinned three of her four opponents throughout the tournament, including the first-place match when the Lady Pirate took down Liberty North’s Kate Grundy in 3:38.
In the 125-weight class, Munn’s senior counterpart punched a ticket to state as Humburg finished in fourth place, while Audrey Call took second place in the 135-weight class to bring the junior’s season tally to 30-4. Call pinned her first three opponents to advance to the first-place match where she fell to Blue Springs’s Rhian Kempf in 3:53.
For Park Hill South, Kubicki stayed unbeaten and won her 104th career match en route to yet another district title as the junior pinned each district opponent in 1:07 or less. The junior will be looking for her third consecutive state title the next time she competes.
Aniya Coleman upset the number one ranked girl in the district’s 100-weight class in the semifinals as the Panther pinned North Kansas City’s Jacklyn Fast at 5:19. Coleman was the runner-up in her weight class when the junior lost to Mid-Buchanan’s Delanie Smith on a 9-1 major decision.
The last two wrestlers standing for North Platte after districts are junior Ariana Hartigan (115) and senior Haley Sampson (110). Both Lady Panthers finished in fourth place by pins in their last match.
West Platte’s sole girl wrestler Kristen Crockett received a first-round bye in the 135-weight class before matching up with Smithville’s Gwen Lewis. Crockett put up a fight, but ultimately fell to Lewis in 2:55.