Gerald pin caps off Rochester win over Western

Howard, Doran, Velez, McKee, Peppler also win by fall

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC\

Jahliah Velez Serenity Howard Lilly Gerald

Lilly Gerald earned a tiebreaking fall in the final match at 110, and Serenity Howard (115), Kyra Doran (120), Jahliah Velez (125), Makenna McKee (130), Laine Peppler (170) also won by fall for the Rochester girls wrestling team in a 36-30 win over Western at the RHS gym Wednesday.

Rochester was leading 30-12 before Western won by fall at 190 and 235 and won by forfeit at 100. The 105 match was a double forfeit.

That meant it came down to Gerald, who came in ranked No. 6 in the state according to IndianaMat.com, against Rayna Cooper.

Gerald worked around Cooper, starting with a single-leg takedown and then turning it into a double, for the first takedown. Cooper would get an escape, but Gerald would finish Cooper with a takedown before turning her and trapping her arms for the fall in 1:25.

Gerald missed the Sarah Hildebrandt Invitational at Penn Saturday due to what coach Tristan Wilson called “skin funk.”

“Lilly Gerald had a lot of pressure on her,” Wilson said. “The girl that she wrestled has improved since last year, and she put up a good fight. And she didn’t wrestle the best that she’s wrestled, and she still found a way to pull out a win.”

Howard, a freshman, began the night with a fall in 28 seconds over Miley Mince.

That brought up Doran, who gave up five points – three points for a takedown plus two back points – within the first five seconds on a side headlock against Shaylee Walker.

“She was really low, and I think I was trying to shoot first because I usually blast right off the whistle,” Doran said. “But she was short, and I’m pretty tall, and I think she just headlocked me because I’m taller and just whipped me around.”

But she kept the deficit at five after one period, refusing to turn asWalker tried to work a half-nelson.

“From bottom, I just really had to keep pinching and looking away because that’s what you’ve got to do,” Doran said. “It wasn’t working, but I wasn’t getting pinned at the same time.” 

Then she took down Walker for the first points of the second period.

“Oh, I was mad,” Doran recalled. “I went for it, lifted her. It wasn’t a great shot. I had my head buried inside of her, but I was mad, so I just pulled off her.”

Walker got up to her feet but faced up against Doran, and Doran responded by throwing her back down from the top position to her shoulders and getting the fall in 3:18.

“We were both in a bad position,” Doran said. “I just kind of laid my body weight on her. She fell, and I stuck her from there.”

Wilson raved about Doran’s competitiveness.

“She hates losing more than she likes winning,” Wilson said. “And I think that drives a lot of her matches.”

Velez trailed Riley VanNess 4-3 after one period but two takedowns in the second period to take a 9-6 lead and added another in the third before turning her on her back and getting the gall in 5:15.

“She had a really good weekend at the Penn Invite,” Wilson said. “She wrestled in the JV division, but this is her first real year of wrestling. She wrestled a little bit as an eighth-grader but not too many matches. And then she went 3-0 on the weekend at Penn, and then she came into here, and again, I think she has learned it doesn’t matter really what happens, she can still win. I think that she’s picking up a lot at practice, and I think she’s really trying to apply it. She’s a freshman right now. She could be a state-caliber wrestler very soon, depending on how hard she wants to put forth in the summer.”

McKee went for a single-leg takedown while Western’s Kyiona Johnson simultaneously went for a headlock. McKee would leverage Johnson’s shoulders, all while Johnson was trying to hang on to McKee’s neck. The fall called in 27 seconds, and it gave Rochester a 24-0 lead.

After falls from Western’s second-ranked Jade Johnson at 145 and ninth-ranked Ava Roe at 155, Peppler used a headlock move to put Western freshman Anessa Worthington to the mat and win in seconds.

Peppler, ranked No. 2, was wrestling for the first time since winning the 170 title at the Hildebrandt Invite.