This week, the Whippet Wrestlers had a busy couple of days being in action on Thursday night, December 8, and again on Saturday, December 10.
On Thursday night, the Whippets traveled to East Troy to participate in a dual meet with Clinton and East Troy, our first two dual meets of the season. The team wrestled very well in both duals coming out on top 60-12 against Clinton and 47-36 against East Troy. Clinton had been down over the years number wise, but the new coach is doing a very nice job getting students out, and they had many competitive matches. The Whippets wrestled well in all the matches to seal wins in many of the matches. Clinton also provided our JV members with some good matches as well. Whitewater has 44 student-athletes on the team, so it can be difficult getting good matches for all the students. Many had the opportunity on Thursday and performed well.
In the next dual meet against East Troy, it was typical East Troy vs Whitewater fashion. Three of the last four times these two teams have met it has come down to criteria after it finished in a tie. This year could very easily have been the same, however Whitewater was able to wrestle with grit and win the swing matches. The coaches were proud of the performance of the team after one of their teammates went down with an injury. They did not know what was wrong but were concerned for their teammate. They kept wrestling hard to finish it out. One of the key swing matches came at 126 when CJ Tomomitsu battled back after losing the majority of the match but was able to secure a pin in the 3rd period which created a huge change in events for the dual meet.
On Saturday, the team hosted a 12-team invitational. This year was the most competitive it has been in the 9 years Whitewater has hosted it. There were many very competitive matches throughout the day, and in the end, Burlington won the tournament with Riverdale coming in second place. Whitewater wrestled well during the day and finished in 4th place. The coaching staff was happy with this finish. We were shorthanded in a couple of weight classes to take care of injuries as the focus is the big picture, not a one-day event.
Unfortunately, the team did not have any finalist this year, but they did have four finish in 3rd place. Jason Villegas, CJ Tomomitsu, Connor Friend, and Payton Lyon all had one loss on the day, but each finished 4-1 to claim 3rd place. Each of the losses were to extremely tough competitors but they all did well in the loss. It is difficult to come back from a loss, but each of them did so to win their last match of the day.
Alongside the boys’ competition there were also brackets set up for the girls to compete in. The women’s wrestling team has some very nice numbers with some new additions in the last week as well. Whitewater had three competing on Saturday. Khloe Meyer has not found success in the win column; however, she is showing much improvement each time she competes. Lauren Buehler wrestled well, pinning her first opponent then losing in the championship in a well wrestled match where she got out of position and took the loss. Lauren finished in 2nd place.
Ashly Xochipa had a great day going 4-0 and bringing home the gold. She pinned all four of her opponents. In one, she was behind in a close match but got a big reversal to the girl’s back for the pin. Ashly improved her record to 9-1 on the year with the wins on Saturday.
Against East Troy and Clinton the ladies also had some very good competition. Coming away with wins for the girls were Lauren Buehler, Stephanie Wence, and Ashly Xochipa who had 3 wins on the night. This was a great performance for the lady’s team.
Photo courtesy of Bob Mischka.