Republic’s girls wrestling program had sent one wrestler to the state tournament in its history. On Saturday at Ozark, six Lady Tigers punched their tickets.
Republic finished third in Class 2 District 3 with 137.5 team points, trailing only Nixa (206.5) and Willard (154.0) in the 20-team field. And the Lady Tigers put six wrestlers in the semifinals — Mabel Rogers at 115, Savannah Bratten at 125, Aara Shade at 170, Bre-Elle Gutierrez at 110, Millie Waterman at 120, and Gabby Shanks at 135. A semifinal win meant an automatic state qualification. Three of the six won.
Rogers, an undefeated freshman, pinned Smith-Cotton’s Katherine Madrid in 1:19 to advance to the finals. Bratten, also a freshman and with just one loss, pinned Willard’s Neela Motlagh in 2:43. Shade, a senior at 170, pinned Ozark’s Avery Tennison in 1:50.
Three others — Gutierrez, Waterman, and Shanks — lost their semifinals and dropped to the consolation bracket, where the consolation semifinal is the last chance to qualify. Meanwhile, senior Rachel Clark at 100 pounds had already started the long road through the consolation bracket after a quarterfinal loss to Willard’s Chloe Kirksey. Clark won three straight consolation matches, the last a 9-0 major decision over Lebanon’s Lacey Malonson in the consolation semifinal, to become Republic’s fourth state qualifier of the day. She finished fourth overall.
Clark knew what was at stake when Malonson stepped on the mat.
“She’s a senior. She’s gonna give all she’s got too, and I’m a senior. It’s all or nothing at that point,” Clark said. “I knew that if I didn’t get the first takedown, then I would be struggling the entire match. But then I got the first takedown, and after that I was like, I gotta just keep working this entire time. There’s no stopping.”
Then it was Waterman’s turn. The program’s only previous state qualifier, Waterman earned her second trip with a major decision over Branson’s Marlett Rosales in the consolation semifinal at 120 pounds. She went on to win the third-place match with a pin.
“Millie kind of came in as a sophomore and made the bubble match her first year, qualified last year,” Nolan said. “She played a major part in setting the standard for our program.”
Last year, Waterman was the only Lady Tiger at state. This year felt different.
“I was quite a bit more nervous last year. It was pretty mind-boggling,” Waterman said. “This year, everything switched. Now we have six girls qualifying. I think last year I was just a little bit nervous because I was the first one. But this year I feel a lot more confident, a lot more calm about state.”
Shanks made it six. After her semifinal loss at 135, she pinned Parkview’s Jadrian Townsend in 58 seconds in the consolation semifinal, then took third with another pin over Webb City’s Tatum Christensen.
“She’s got so much talent and potential,” Nolan said. “We’ve been working quite a bit on the mental side of things with her to try to build her confidence, and I think that she took a step forward today in a major way in terms of realizing the kind of talent that she has.”
Shanks said the consolation semifinal was fueled by the sting of her earlier loss.
“I went out there with a lot of anger. Rage was really fueling me that match,” Shanks said. “Instead of shaking in my boots and being like, it’s the blood round — no, I was thinking nobody’s going to take this chance away from me because they did last year and it’s not going to happen again.”
Gutierrez, at 110 pounds, won two matches before falling in the semifinals to Nixa’s Ashton Mayes, then lost a consolation semifinal decision 8-3 to Raymore-Peculiar’s Charli Ross. Another freshman, Reese Tate at 105, won two consolation matches before her run ended with a fall in the consolation semifinal against Nixa’s Hanna Egley. Chloe Simpson at 145 also won a match before being eliminated. Her consolation win was one of the most dramatic of the day — trailing Smith-Cotton’s Alivia Washington, she turned the tables and won with a pin.
In the finals, Rogers capped her unbeaten season with a pin of Branson’s Alyssa Salemie in 2:44 to win the 115-pound championship at 38-0.
“I was a little nervous, but I ended up turning that into excitement. That’s what my dad always tells me to do,” Rogers said. “I didn’t expect to pin her, but that was my goal, so I’m very glad I achieved that.”
Bratten pinned Ozark’s Hannah Maskrod in 4:23 to take the 125-pound title at 26-1. When asked for her best moment of the day, she didn’t pick one of her own matches.
“Aara making it to state … I was so excited,” she said. “I literally started crying for her.”
“To have two freshmen win district championships — it’s pretty exciting,” head coach Eric Nolan said.
Shade fell to Willard’s Emily Brixey in the 170-pound championship match, finishing second. But her runner-up finish, along with fellow senior Rachel Clark’s fourth-place finish, were a highlight of the day for Nolan.
“I’m real proud of Rachel and Aara, who both basically started as sophomores, so very inexperienced, and to see how far they’ve come in such a short amount of time — it’s really neat and cool to see,” Nolan said.
For Shade, making her first trip to the state tournament came down to trust.
“My coaches trusted me and just overall they were so — they just knew I could do it, like just all their hope, they put it on and gave it to me,” Shade said.
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