By Cody Thorn (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — This time around, there was no stress and anxious moments when it came to winning a state championship for the Lebanon girls wrestling team.
The Yellowjackets did most of the work before the championship matches on Tuesday at the MSHSAA Girls Wrestling Championships at Cable Dahmer Arena.
Lebanon finished with 101 points, easily outdistancing Lafayette Wildwood, which had 81 ½ points. The championship is the second in the three years of the sport being a sanctioned championship event by MSHSAA.
The first time around, the Yellowjackets needed a loss by a Wildwood wrestler in a championship match to guarantee a title and they got that and won by six points.
“It means a lot,” Lebanon coach Matt Neely said. “The girls put in a lot of work. It was really them doing it. They put in the time this year and it means a little more since last year we imploded at state and this year we were fighting for it the whole time.”
Last year the Yellowjackets finished 10th in the team standings despite having seven qualifiers.
The team’s depth this year – eight qualifiers – played a part in the success. The team title was locked up before the finals even started thanks to six medalists – but not a state champion oddly enough.
“We don’t have a bunch of studs but we are solid across the board,” Neely said. “We are solid, we maybe don’t have a state champion, but we have six medalists.”
While Lebanon didn’t have a champion, it has wrestlers place second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth.
Freshman Halea Bartel (122) made the finals but lost to Nixa’s Brenya Crahan, falling to her for the fifth time this season out of six matches. Bartel (41-6) did pick up some key wins to get to the finals, beating returning medalist Mikayla Whatley of North County in the quarterfinals and then knocking off undefeated Lexi Hatfield of Staley – pinning both of them.
Bailey Joiner (127) and Taylor Johnson (143) each took third place for Lebanon.
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The sophomore (43-6) ended with a win over Ste. Genevieve’s Isabel Basler by a pin – her third pin in four matches. The only one she didn’t win was in the semifinals against Odessa’s Mateja Wilson.
Johnson lost in the semifinals to now two-time champion Maddie Kubicki of Park Hill South in the first period. Johnson, a sophomore, closed with a 3-2 decision over Lathrop’s Josie Wright, a state runner-up last year, in the third-place match.
Ali Haiser (159) entered with a 40-0 record but the sophomore ran into Lafayette Wildwood’s Josette Partney in the semifinals and lost by a 14-11 decision – losing on a near fall at the buzzer after leading 11-9 with 10 seconds to go.
Partney, 36-0, would then win the state championship match after finishing third at 187 in 2020 and second at 167 in 2019 – losing the match that would’ve led to a tie with Lebanon for the state title.
In the third-place match, Haiser lost by pin to Kirkwood’s Emma Schreiber, who took third last year as well.
Freshman Mariyah Brumley ended up taking third at 235, while junior Quincey Glendenning took sixth at 132.
Brumley (36-4) lost to eventual state champion Lexi Cole of Kearney in the quarterfinals but then won her last three to take fifth. Brumley pinned Camdenton’s Clara Rathmann in the second meeting of the year in the consolation semifinals and then needed 33 seconds to dispatch Francis Howell Central’s Kennedy Eggering in the fifth-place match.
Two of Brumley’s four losses came against state champions – falling to Springfield Central’s Catherine Dutton earlier this year while wrestling at 195.
Glendenning, a state champion in 2019, earned another state medal by finishing sixth.
She lost in the quarterfinals but rattled off two straight wins to secure a medal. In the fifth-place match the junior lost to Columbia Rock Bridge’s Anna Stephens – a returning state medalist – by a 7-6 decision.
“We pushed each other hard this year and kind of had to rebound after last year, we had to win it again,” Haiser said. “It is pretty cool we were able to do it. We had a big upset last year at state and we were kind of set on winning.”
