Highlands girls wrestling coach Dakota Riley may have been the happiest man in Lexington.
The Bluebirds finished third with 97 points at Saturday’s Region 3 meet at Bryan Station High School. Harrison County won with 217 points, and Lafayette was second with 113.
“I am very, very thrilled with the third place,” Riley said.
So, why was Riley ecstatic? Harrison County and Lafayette had 13 and 10 competitors, while Highlands had just five.
“Given the circumstances, everybody performed awesome,” Riley said. “I don’t think we could ask for a better outcome … We’re just lucky we have good kids, girls that are invested and hard-working.”
What was better: all five qualified for the state meet Feb. 17 at Alltech Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington.
Two won individual titles: senior Emily Heilman at 114 pounds and freshman Emma Hood at 152. Sophomore Laila Pinkston was second at 120, eighth-grader Meg Gallagher was fourth at 100, and freshman Abby Berling was fourth at 165.
“Meg Gallagher is a first-year wrestler who had one of the tougher brackets, at least one of the larger brackets, in the tournament,” Riley said. “Laila Pinkston upset was unseeded and upset the No. 1 seed (Lafayette’s Aaliyah Davis) with a pin in the second period, I believe, in the semis. That was huge.”
Cousin vs. cousin
Saturday’s 100-pound championship was also an intra-familial tussle.
Walton-Verona sophomore Emma Moore scored a 17-8 win over her cousin, Harrison County eighth-grader Sophia Moore.
“Emma’s been around it, she’s been a statistician for the boys team a few years,” Walton-Verona coach (and Emma’s dad) Jason Moore said. “Moving over to competition, we’ve kind of kept it really relaxed and kind of enjoyed the experience.”
Except for summer workouts, Saturday was the first time Emma and Sophia had ever wrestled each other. So, were they nervous?
“I kind of was at first,” Sophia said. “I kind of wanted both of us to win.”
Winning championships is not new to Moore’s family. One brother, Ryan, is a three-time national runner-up at Thomas More (and a two-time state champion at Walton-Verona), and Spencer won two high school titles and is the 125-pound starter at North Carolina. (He finished fourth in the ACC tournament as a freshman.)
Dad and the brothers had to convince Emma to try it.
“I didn’t know if I would like it,” she said.
After the win, Ryan and Spencer Moore offered Emma some brotherly encouragement.
“They told me that I should try to get more state titles than they did,” Emma said.
A championship foursome
Four more Northern Kentuckians won individual championships: Conner’s Rose Thomas at 132, Walton-Verona’s Sophie Anderson at 138, Simon Kenton’s Gabriella Ocasio at 145, and Ryle’s Viktorya Emelianova at 185.
“She’s our most experienced girl, a leader on the team,” Jason Moore said of Anderson.
Anderson is a Type 1 diabetic, defeating George Rogers Clark’s Aanyah Betancur in the finals.
“She has been battling with that, really, her whole life,” Jason Moore said. “She’s kind of had some ups and downs this season with that; (she) actually missed all week of practice leading up to region.”
After Anderson executed a “chicken wing” – pinning an arm to Betancur’s back – Betancur twice escaped and once put Anderson on her back.
“It was more the other girl being good at what she was doing,” Jason Moore said.
A stoppage to clean up some blood allowed Anderson and Moore to talk – a good thing because she eventually pinned Betancur.
The top four in each weight class advance to the state meet Feb. 17 at Alltech Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington. Other state qualifiers from Northern Kentucky include: Riece Laughlin of Simon Kenton (100), Emily Stephenson of Walton-Verona (107), Mariah Koch of Campbell County (132), Rokhaya Temple of Newport (138), Natasha Knight of Newport (152) and Devon Banks of Simon Kenton (152).
Simon Kenton finished fourth with 87 points. Walton-Verona was seventh with 53, Campbell County and Newport tied for ninth with 34, Conner was 12th with 26, Ryle was 13th with 24, and Holmes tied with Bourbon County for 16th with 12. Cooper did not score and finished 20th.