Some girls from Mexico and Centralia spent Martin Luther King Day not taking it easy but rather getting some work in on the mat at the second Mexico Brick City Classic Girls Dual Tournament on Monday at the Mexico Sports Complex.

Brick City Classic Gallery

Mexico girls honor seniors, program pioneers

Mexico girls wrestling appreciates the ones who started it all.

Mexico was one of 10 teams that participated in the second Mexico Brick City Classic Girls Dual Tournament on Monday at the Mexico Sports Complex. Mexico finished eighth — after losing to Ft. Zumwalt South 48-24 — amongst a field with bigger rosters as each team had several open spots.

That was just a small downside to the many benefits for his team, Mexico head coach Tony Senor said. He said he expected to have many bouts be declared open and to be on the losing end of duals, but Mexico wanted to welcome bigger rosters to its tournament to make sure his girls wrestled.

“Having a dual tournament has its pros and cons. Some sides can be a little uneven with team and roster sizes,” Senor said. “Girls don’t have a whole lot of dual opportunities. In order to come into a tournament and have this, it is kind of special for girls. Girls wrestling is still growing in Missouri. I try to get teams that have really loaded rosters so we can have as many matchups as possible.”

Mexico is in its third year of offering girls wrestling. Considering that, Monday was an even more special day for the program as time was taken before the day’s placing matches to recognize seniors Kaylynn Pehle and Choice Foster. Each girl was with the program from the beginning, compiling three years of hard work.

For Pehle, she gave the Lady Bulldogs some points via open spots in their final three duals of the day, which followed her injury in the second dual against North Point. Pehle lost her first match in the first dual against finalist Holden prior pulling out of any more matches because of her knee.

“She has been having a lot of adversity on and off the mat this senior year,” Senor said. “I’m very proud she is committed to the Marines. She has been a leader the past three years, and she was a member of the very first girls wrestling team.

“Choice Foster, she was on the original team too, and I’m very honored to have her along for the ride and stick it out and try this crazy sport called wrestling. I can’t say enough about Choice and Kaylynn. This sport is tough, and they’ve grown a lot since we started our girls wrestling program. They’re part of school history. Their legacy is, ‘I was part of the first girls wrestling team.’ There’s not a whole lot that can say that.”

Others that wrestled for Senor were Abby Bowen, Alexus Johns and Karisa Hayden. Bowen pinned one of her opponents in the second period and was pinned in the same two minutes but also took some close decision losses of 5-3 and 9-6 (against Centralia’s Madie Shelton). In the two matches Johns wrestled, she was pinned in the second period against Holden and pinned Centralia’s Besan Juma in the second period — both rematches.

“Abby Bowen wrestled some tough girls — some girls who have wrestling a lot longer than her. She did fairly well against that Centralia girl,” Senor said. “Our heavyweight, Alexus Johns, she lost to that Holden girl (Alex VanHooser). We’re getting better. We got pinned by her in the first period (before). Today, it was the second period. We were sticking with her.”

Hayden finished the day 3-1 in the matches that weren’t open, being pinned once but pinning her other three opponents.

Senor likes what each of his girls did Monday, regardless of the small amount available at the time.

“We’ve had a few girls out with sickness, even more with injury,” Senor said. “Being down and having the team that we had today, I thought we wrestled pretty well.”

Centralia improving on techniques

The Centralia girls’ few wrestlers had some valuable work on Monday.

At the Mexico Brick City Classic Girls Dual Tournament, the Lady Panthers had four wrestle in matches whenever a match wasn’t open amongst the field of 10 teams — most with bigger rosters. Centralia finished 10th after losing a dual 36-12 with Camdenton.

Head girls coach Tyler Forsee said he would have liked to see more wins but saw every one of his girls compete tough all day and improve in some aspects on the mat.

“I did see a lot of things were improving on,” Forsee said. “Our bottom position, I thought we did a good job of holding our base and finding a way to get to our feet. We did a decent job of getting pins when we needed them.”

Madie Shelton highlighted the day for the Lady Panthers as a couple of her matches ended in a pinfall victory and 9-6 decision. She pinned her North Point opponent prior to beating Mexico’s Abby Bowen in a close decision.

Gretchen Marriott scored multiple pinfalls on the day at the 155-pound weight class, closing out a couple of matches in the second period.

Besan Juma was pinned a couple times but not before making it past the first period, including a battle against Holden’s Alex VanHooser that lasted until the third period.

“Our kids came in and got better for sure,” Forsee said. “We made some mistakes. It’s still that point in the year where they can learn and get better. As long as our girls want to get better, they’ll continue to keep taking the steps they need to take to get ready for districts.”