For the most part, West Texas has dominated the small class at the UIL Wrestling Girls State Championships.
Is this the year a Dallas-Fort Worth area team ascends to the top of the podium in the team hunt?
The Class 5A championship this weekend in Cypress will feature a handful of teams with multiple qualifiers, but leading the way is Melissa.
The No. 1-ranked team will have 9 at the state meet — the m most of any team ranked in our top 10.
The Cardinals are seeking the first state title and will be challenged by a handful of teams. Azle enters as the No. 2 seed and will have five at state. Azle is one of only 2 team to win a state title in the smallest classification that isn’t from West Texas.
Azle won the Class 4A title in 2012-13, before UIL redid the number system to make it 5A and 6A.
Justin Northwest won the crown in the 2022-23 season. Other than that, the list of champions has been from El Paso, Lubbock or Amarillo.
Lubbock Cooper is the 2-time defending champion at the 5A level.
Other teams in the top 10 to watch for include San Antonio Pieper (7 qualifiers), Anna (6), Burleson (5) and Georgetown, El Paso Bel Air and Amarillo Palo Duro, all have four.
Now, let’s break down each of the 14 brackets. Follow along to see how smart or how dumb we look when we all leave the Berry Center on Saturday night.
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Favorite
Noah Kovach, jr., Azle — No. 1-ranked, a two-time finalist and one-time champion, is the favorite to repeat this year.
Contenders
Lila Breedlove, jr., Borger — A runner-up in regional 2, she is 33-1 on the season and ranked No. 2.
Carly Rodriguez, jr., Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial — She landed in the bottom half of the bracket opposite of Kovach. She is 43-1, but will have a battle that could feature Breedlove in the semifinals.
Sleeper
Ashley Marron Rodriguez, sr., Austin L.C. Anderson — Ranked No. 6, she’s one of four wrestlers with only one loss in the field. She lost to Rodriguez last weekend.
