It had been about two months since most wrestlers competed.
The last big freestyle tournament was in July at the Fargo National tournament which featured some of the best high school wrestlers in the United States.
In last Saturday’s Central Cup Tournament, girls dual teams from Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri competed in an eight team bracket at Olathe. Several wrestlers were knocking off some rust from not competing in two months or longer.
Three teams from Oklahoma entered the tournament and the Oklahoma LTD Blue squad had the best finish out of all the teams from the state. It went 4-0 in the pool bracket to make it to the championship match against the Queens of Mayhem from Kansas.
Oklahoma Blue fell in that dual, 41-21, taking second place.
Team Oklahoma LTD Red finished fifth as it went 3-2 and ended with a 42-30 win over the Missouri Outlaws Pink team. Redskins Wrestling out of Oklahoma took seven after winning two out of five matches. It finished the tournament with a 33-31 win over WTC of Kansas.
Oklahoma Blue beat TTWC 47-23, topped Missouri Outlaws Pink 46-22, beat WTC 54-13 and got past the Rough Riders 40-28.
Edmond North’s Clover Williams (140 pounds) was a big part of her team’s success. She finished with a perfect 5-0 record and ended her day by coming out on top in a defensive battle with Scarlett Yeager of Queens of Mayhem, winning 2-1.
Even after not losing a single match, she was thinking about how she could get better and what she could improve.
“There are some things I need to work on,” Williams said. “I need to get a little bit stronger and go into my matches with a better game plan. I am not terribly disappointed. There are steps I can make to improve my wrestling.”
Owasso’s Lindlee Hubbard (130) joined Williams as one of the two wrestlers on the team to finish undefeated at 5-0. She ended her day with a 4-2 victory over Rachel Garcia in another defensive battle.
“She did a really good job,” Lindlee said of Garcia. “I just had to keep going to win that match. I went against her before and she’s beaten me before. I just didn’t want to get taken down or scored on.”
Stillwater’s Autumn Jones finished her day on a high note as pinned Lily Davis in just 45 seconds during the championship dual. She went 4-1, with her only loss coming in a tiebreaker loss against WTC’s Leo Karnowski as the score was 8-8.
“I went out there and wrestled and tried my hardest,” Jones said. “I took her down, got a go behind and turned her and pinned her. I just did what I practiced.”
Others on Oklahoma Blue to finish 4-1 were Elissa Cruz (100), Jaylyn Lazzerimi (105), Marli Arbona (120), Claire Lancaster (125), Ezmerelda Fuller (145) and Mya Dobrinski (155).
In Cruz’s win over Queen of Mayhem’s Reanna Spangler, she had a big four-point throw in the second period. that helped her earn an 11-2 victory.
“I feel like it was an unexpected move from me,” Cruz said. “I didn’t think I would be able to hit that. I kind of fell into it. It turned out to be really good.”
Brook West also had a winning record as she finished 3-2.
For Team LTD Oklahoma Red, those who finished with a winning record were Hannah Lopez (105) at 5-0, Sasha Williams (120) at 4-1, Hannah Miller (140) at 4-1, Makenna Howell at 3-2 (145), Ashlee Jones (170) at 5-0, Alyvin Edwards (190) at 3-2 and Gabriella Castro (235) at 3-2.
The Redskins had six wrestlers who finished with a winning record including Kaylee Orton (95) at 5-0, Remy Whitney (105) at 3-2, Carli Sisco (110) at 4-1, Launa Troutt (120) at 4-1 and Piper Morton (155) at 4-1.
