Seniors Krysten Neil and Larissa Espinosa placed second at their respective weights in leading the Ignacio Bobcats girls wrestling team to a fifth-place finish Saturday on the girls’ side of IHS’ Butch Melton Memorial Invitational.
Personnel numbers were probably the only thing separating Durango from first place overall; Lillian (135) and Aleia (130) Fenberg both placed first, as did Marie Baker (120), Sydney McAllister (105) and Timber Zink (155). The quintet combined to go 21-0 (Lillian Fenberg and Baker each went 5-for-5) with 15 pins.
Competing at 135 pounds, Neil first pinned Bloomfield, New Mexico’s McKenzie Williams 1:25 into the second period, then defeated Pagosa Springs’ Audrina Smith by 18-3 technical fall, won via medical forfeit against Hotchkiss North Fork’s Perla Valdez and pinned Bayfield’s Ashlynn Bravo (after building up a 15-1 advantage) 1:41 into the second period.
That put Neil into a winner-take-all against Durango’s Lillian Fenberg, but after an intense, seesaw six minutes in which Lillian booked three four-point near-falls, Neil came up on the short side of a 21-10 major decision.
Entered in the 235-pound division, Espinosa had but one bout inside Ignacio Middle School Gymnasium, and unluckily for her it was against Bloomfield’s prodigious Caylee Miller. More or less Espinosa’s major regional rival, Miller again came out ahead; after building up a 5-0 lead through two periods, Miller then increased her advantage to 8-0 in the third before managing to pin Espinosa 37 seconds in.
Bloomfield ultimately totaled 147 points and finished runner-up to North Fork (184), with DHS (128) coming in third. Ignacio tallied 63.5 and finished fifth, one spot above Bayfield (61) in the standings, slimmed down due to wintry weather canceling several teams’ travel plans.
Additionally for IHS, Kodi Mae Rima placed third at 130 after posting a 2-2 tourney record sewn up with a 52-second pin of NFHS’ Sunshine DeHerrera. Eliska Prokopova also earned the Bobcats third-place points after going 3-2 at 140 pounds; one of her victories came at teammate Ireland Cates’ expense, but a pin courtesy Bayfield’s Jade Kehoe ended her day.
Kehoe, meanwhile, ended up being Bayfield’s top finisher as she went 4-1 with three pins, but also a technical-fall loss in the 140-pound division’s finale to North Fork’s Danika Queen. Allison Thomas went 2-2 and placed third, thanks to a 32-second pin of Montezuma-Cortez’s Jaime Helm, at 110, and senior Elly Coey took third at 120 after stringing together three consecutive victories (all pins) after suffering two early-round losses.
