Elizabeth Riggs, a Wright City senior, placed third in her weight class at the MSHSAA Missouri state wrestling championships.
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As a freshman, Elizabeth Riggs had zero wrestling experience and was one of three making up the Wright City girls wrestling program.
She departs the program as its first varsity letterwinner for all four years and added another accolade this past week – state medalist.
Riggs won four of her five matches at the Class 1 state championships, capturing third place at 125 pounds. She wrapped up her senior year with a 42-3 record.
“I told Lizzy that she will be greatly missed for her leadership and dedication to the sport,” Wright City Coach Fred Ross said.
Riggs was making her second appearance at state and her experience showed this time around.
She won her first two matches by pinfall until being pinned in the third period by Fulton’s Emmy Begemann. She rebounded by pinning Pacific’s Zoe Fisher in the consolation semifinal and beating Ste. Genevieve’s Addison Geiler by a 11-9 decision in the third-place match.
“She started out wrestling very smart in her first two matches, but made few mistakes in her loss,” Ross said about Riggs. “She showed her mental toughness by shaking off the loss and finishing her high school career with two wins and a third-place medal.”
The Wildcats had three other state qualifiers, with Samantha Yates, Kali Jensen and Sadie Sehnert each winning one of three matches. Jensen qualified for state for the second year in a row.
Sehnert captured 37 victories this year, while Yates and Jensen had 35 wins apiece.
“I was happy they way everyone wrestled overall,” Ross said. “I thought that we drew some bad matchups and knew that it would be hard for our girls to move on. But all of our girls won at least one match.”
Yates’ lone win came by pinning Excelsior Springs’ Analese Happy in the opening period. Jensen earned a win in her first match, pinning Naomi Yoder in the second period. Sehnert also had a pinfall over McDonald County’s Anjelika Alacon in the third period.
“I told them all how proud I was that they qualified for state,” Ross said. “I told Sam that as a first-time state qualifier that she handled the pressure and was in all of her marches. Kali has two more years to improve and she is Wright City’s second two-time state qualifier. Sadie also has two years to get better and (state) was a great learning experience.”
The state tournament capped a successful year.
“The girls team had an outstanding season winning two tournaments, placing second and third in two other tournaments. This makes eight trophies in the last three years for this new program.”
