Lady Wildcats win school’s first wrestling tourney title

Graves, Hall lead boys wrestlers with third place individual finishes

John Rohlf, Sports Editor
Posted 12/8/22

The Wright City Lady Wildcat wrestling squad used six first place finishes to win the first wrestling tournament in school history. 

The Lady Wildcats beat Eureka High School by less than 13 …

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Lady Wildcats win school’s first wrestling tourney title

Graves, Hall lead boys wrestlers with third place individual finishes

Posted

The Wright City Lady Wildcat wrestling squad used six first place finishes to win the first wrestling tournament in school history. 

The Lady Wildcats beat Eureka High School by less than 13 team points to win the John Burroughs Tournament. Caelyn Hanff, Kali Jensen, Elizabeth Riggs, Lauren Ritter, Sadie Sehnert and Samantha Yates all went undefeated on the day to win their weight classes. Five Lady Wildcats notched second place finishes.

“Our depth and everybody getting wins led to that first tournament championship ever in school history,” Ross said. “So that’s pretty special for the kids.”

Riggs and Ritter both won three matches in the tournament to win their weight classes. Wrestling in the 125-pound weight class, Riggs beat Jessica Fallon of Brentwood, Ella Nottingham of Eureka and Gracy Raycraft of STEAM Academy all by fall. She recorded three pins in a combined 2:58. Ritter notched a pair of pins over Madison Pierce of Brentwood and Amina Phillip of Eureka in the 145-pound weight class. She beat Addisyn Gasaway of Park Hills 9-7 in overtime in the final round to win the weight class. Hanff, Jensen, Sehnert and Yates each won two matches to win their respective weight classes. 

Ross thinks the Lady Wildcats notching 20 pins and every wrestler winning at least one match were crucial to the Lady Wildcats winning the tournament title. 

“We wrestled better than expected,” Ross said. “We knew going in that we had some pretty good kids. But everybody really stepped up and beat a big school like Eureka in the finals.”

Lane Graves and Caleb Hall both registered third place finishes for the Wright City boys wrestling team, which placed ninth in the tournament. Graves finished the competition with a 5-2 record in the 138-pound weight class. Graves registered four match wins by pinning his opponent. He beat Nolan Schulz of Brentwood 18-0. 

“Lane wrestled really well. He had a couple tough kids in his weight class that we think he can compete a little bit better with,” Ross said. 

Hall went 6-1 in the 190-pound weight class and placed third in the competition. Hall beat teammate Cody Cushing on a 5-2 decision. Hall registered pins in his other five wins.  

“He actually beat the first place kid but he lost to somebody else,” Ross said. “He’s wrestling up a little bit of a weight and did an excellent job and went 6-1 on the day. So that’s a really good tournament for him.”

Cushing, David Riggs and Isaiah Yoder each won three matches in the tournament. 

The Wildcat wrestling teams competed earlier last week in a quad meet. The Wright City boys wrestling team went 1-2 in the home matches. Wright City beat South Callaway 39-30. They lost to Gateway Science Charter 42-36 and Missouri Military Academy 60-17. The Wildcats went 5-1 in contested matches against Gateway Science Charter. The Lady Wildcats won their lone match of the day over South Callaway. They won the match 57-6. 

The Wright City boys and girls wrestling teams are scheduled to compete at Liberty in Wentzville this weekend. Ross said the Wildcat grapplers will know where they stand after this week’s competition. There are multiple district schools also competing at the tournament. 

“We’ll find out where we are,” Ross said. “There’s a bunch of district schools in this meet this weekend. That may make people change some different weights. That may make us want to change some different strategies, different things we’re going to do. This weekend’s a really tough task.” 


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