Brian S. Doyle
The Conroe Woodlands College Park Cavalier High School hosted their annual Cavalier Classic Boys and Girls wrestling tournament. This article will summarize the Girls tournament. All rankings quoted were used with Texas Wrestling 11/114/2023 rankings.
There were eleven teams consisting of 91 girls who competed in Pool wrestling on Friday in order to qualify for seeding for the Saturday quarterfinals. 80 girls qualified for those spots. Participating teams included the following Texas high schools: All Saints Episcopal, Conroe Grand Oaks, Corpus Christi Veterans Memorial, El Paso Pebble Hills, Huntsville, Katy, Klein Oak, North Richland Hills-Birdville, Prosper, Willis, and the host, College Park.
Of those girls involved, included nineteen wrestlers currently ranked in the top twenty of their respective weight classes by Texas Wrestling, and 3 of those that are ranked, come from the 5A ranks. Eight of the wrestlers were in the Top 10 of their class, and one was a #1 ranked, returning State Champion.
100 lbs: Championships Match:
Due to the top seed, Heaven Herrera, (6A #10 at 107 lbs) forfeiting her second day matches (not sure if she didn’t make weight, but it makes sense) there were three girls left in the semifinals. London Orozco, the 4th seed from Huntsville moved onto the finals, and the #2 and #3 seeds battled for the other spot. Abigail Mendoza of CCVM met Natalie Robertson of Katy in the other semifinal. Mendoza, true to her Texas Wrestling #9 5A ranking, defeated Robertson by fall at 1:28.
In the finals, Mendoza was able to score the first takedown, and used a strong upper body ride and power-half to turn Orozco to get a 3 point nearfall. I’m not quite sure why the ref blew the whistle, there was no caution/penalty/stalemate. But with only 17 seconds left in the period, it ended with Mendoza ahead by 5-0. After Orozco deferred, Mendoza chose bottom to start the 2nd. She stood, quickly turned, and used a quarter nelson to turn Orozco over at 2:41….
