A year ago, Millie Waterman was Republic’s lone girls wrestling state qualifier. This time, she was one of six — and she made it all the way to the Class 2 championship match at 120 pounds before falling to Belton’s Sydney Stifter.
Waterman finished second with a 44-6 record, scoring 18 team points. She won three straight decisions to reach the finals, each one more impressive than the last.
She opened with a 4-1 decision over Raytown’s Ulalia Butler, then beat Northwest’s Amelia Huncovsky 8-4 in the quarterfinals. The semifinal was the match that mattered most to her — a 7-4 decision over Waynesville’s Dakota Nix, who had Waterman’s number until they met on wrestling’s biggest stage.
“My favorite part of this whole experience is probably my win over Waynesville, because she’s beat me three times this season and four times in my career,” Waterman said. “So it’s pretty significant.”
Coach Eric Nolan pointed to that semifinal as one of the weekend’s defining moments, and a sign of Waterman’s progress.
“At one point she got tech-falled [by Nix],” Nolan said of Waterman. “But we chipped away at her. At the district tournament we were two points away from winning. And to see her pull that off at the very end was very exciting. I’m real proud of her.”
Stifter, who entered the finals at 62-1, pinned Waterman in 45 seconds in the championship match. But the finals appearance itself was a milestone for a wrestler who started her career at Parkview before transferring to Republic.
“My freshman self would be blown away,” Waterman said. “I went to state with my older sister Becca, because she did qualify. It was her senior year when I was a freshman. And I never thought that I would be down there.”
Waterman finished third at districts and battled through the bracket to the championship mat, getting her opportunity to run into Mizzou Arena under a spotlight for the finals.
“I knew that I had a job to do, and I knew that I was gonna do it,” she said. “But just being down there is kind of a surprise. Kind of mind-blowing.”
Waterman finishes her career as the only multiple state qualifier in program history.
120 Class 2 — Millie Waterman (44-6), 2nd place, 18.0 team points
Champ. Round 1: Waterman dec. Ulalia Butler (Raytown), 4-1
Quarterfinal: Waterman dec. Amelia Huncovsky (Northwest), 8-4
Semifinal: Waterman dec. Dakota Nix (Waynesville), 7-4
1st Place: Sydney Stifter (Belton) fall Waterman, 0:45
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