Rochester girls wrestling roundup: Gerald, Doran, Peppler win Rochester Invite titles, help team take 2nd

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Lily Gerald Kyra Doran

The Rochester girls wrestling scored 160.5 points and finished second out of 29 teams at the Rochester Invitational at the RHS gym Saturday.

Lilly Gerald (105), Kyra Doran (120) and Laine Peppler (170) were weight class champions. Makenna McKee (125) finished second, Elise Enyart (145) placed third, and Serenity Howard (115) took fifth.

Lexi Haughs went 4-1 with four falls at 155 but did not place.

Wawasee scored 161.5 points to win the title. Plymouth was third with 141.

Gerald had perhaps the day’s most unpredictable match in her championship match against Wawasee’s Hadley Faurote. Gerald jumped out to a 13-2 lead after one period, getting six back points along the way.

But Faurote fought back to start the second period, getting the sixth-ranked Gerald on her back and getting within 13-9. Then Gerald got a reversal. Then Faurote reversed back. Then Gerald reversed on that reversal.

They traded reversals again in the third period before Gerald was awarded two more back points to close out a 21-13 major decision.

“She did fine,” Wilson said of Gerald. “She really pushed the pace and was trying to score points, and that put herself in some bad positions, and she needs to see that. Overall, I’m not disappointed in how she wrestled. It was just a back and forth match.”

Doran’s style is straight-ahead and explosive. She frequently executes a blast double – like a linebacker taking down a running back – after the referee’s whistle and goes from there, winning all four of her matches by fall.  None of her matches lasted longer than 1:43. She finished with a fall over Chesterton freshman Madelynn Scharp – she also pinned Scharp the previous week at the Sarah Hildebrandt Invitational at Penn – for the title.

“Strong, I would say so,” Wilson said. “Aggressive. Her aggressiveness, her strength, all of that is coming into play. She came into this season under 120, which was all a surprise to us, and her body just naturally felt like that. She was super tall for the weight class, so she has a lot of leverage, which helps a lot too. And she hates to lose. She’s fighting every second, and she would rather go out there and try to pin someone as fast as she can just to get it done and over with so she knows that she won.”

Peppler said she added strength in the weight room and still weighs in between 166 and 167.

She said she also improved her technical wrestling, essentially adding more offense to her repertoire of moves. A favorite move is an underhook that leads to a high single-leg takedown, but there are other moves.”

“I feel a lot more aggressive than I did the last couple years,” Peppler said. “I’m ready to get in more shots and actually fight for my matches.”

How did she get to that point?

“Wrestling all summer long,” she said. “Just building my confidence, knowing I’m good enough to be out there with these girls.”

McKee got to the finals by pinning Wawasee’s Evelyn Tinkey and North Miami’s Lindsey Pugh. In the semifinal match against Pugh, she fell behind 6-0 before coming back and sticking her in 4:48.

But in her championship match, she lost by fall in 1:48 to Plymouth’s Angel Smith. Smith is ranked No. 4 in the state, Pugh is No. 11, and McKee is No. 12.

“She needs to have a better game plan,” Wilson said when asked what McKee needs to do to beat Smith. “She wanted to go for the ties, and she was pressuring in a lot, and she had a really good pass-by, and she just used Makenna’s aggressiveness and pressure against her. Makenna is still raw in this. Smith from Plymouth has been wrestling for a very long time, and she’s very, very good. She had a great attitude after the match, and she was very aggressive, so I’m very happy with that.”

Enyart lost to John Glenn’s Miah Lichtenbarger in the quarters but came back through the wrestlebacks and clinched third place when she pinned Lichtenbarger in their rematch later in the day.

“For them to lose their first couple matches and to battle back all the way and win everything else, I know Lexi ended up in the consolation bracket, it’s just the way the bracket fell,” Wilson said of Haughs and Enyart. “Elise was able to battle all the way back and get third. Both of them, hats off to them, especially Elise because she ended up beating the girl who beat her the first time. And she battled all the way back. I had a good talk with her, and we needed to fix some things, and she fixed them.”

Rochester takes 6th at Sarah Hildebrandt Invitational

Rochester scored 110 points and finished sixth in the 51-team field at the Sarah Hildebrandt Invitational at Penn Nov. 15.

Laine Peppler was Rochester’s lone individual champion, going 4-0 to win the title at 170. Peppler is currently ranked No. 2 in the state, per IndianaMat.com. She finished sixth at state last year.

In addition, Kyra Doran (120) and Makenna McKee (125) both finished second, and Constance Velez finished third at 235..

Elise Enyart (145) did not place but went 3-2 on the day and scored 10 team points. Serenity Howard (115) did not place but scored four team points.

In the JV tournament, Jahliah Velez won her weight class at 120, Constance Velez finished third at 235, and Kayla Doss was fourth at 155.

Hobart won the team title with 225 points. Caston was 31st, and Winamac was 44th.

Rochester 36, Peru 18

The Rochester girls wrestling team recorded six falls and won their first dual match of the season against host Peru Nov. 12.

Lilly Gerald (105), Serenity Howard (115), Jahliah Velez (120), Elise Enyart (145), Kayla Doss (170) and Laine Peppler (170) got the falls.