Brian S. Doyle
The UIL Girls District 10-6A championships were held on February 2-3 at the CFISD Berry Center. There were 129 girls representing the twelve Cypress Fairbanks high schools. Of that 129, twenty-six are ranked in the most recent WrestlingTexas.com 6A rankings. The setting was set for a wild two days of wrestling. The WrestlingTexas rankings that are quoted in the recap are based on the rankings leading into the District tournament.
One of the bigger upsets of the tournament took place in the 100 lb. semifinals. While you wouldn’t think that a #3 seed beating a #2 is a big upset, consider that Christine Tran of Jersey Village, currently ranked #4 had already beaten Hailey Bello of Langham Creek twice this season in other tournament semifinals. Bello used five points from two nearfalls to defeat Tran 13-10 for the right to meet the top seed, Arianna Beltran-Villalo of Cy Ranch, who is currently ranked #7 with a 43-4 record. Bello was outmatched in this match, as she was only able to muster two escapes in six minutes, and lost a 9-3 decision. Tran regrouped and WBF against Courtney Hoang of Bridgeland in the consolation finals.
The second top seeded Cy Ranch wrestler was up next at 107 lbs, as Alejandra Mezano-Garza brought her #6 ranking to the finals vs. 2nd seed and #19 ranked Scarlet Sanchez of Cy Ridge. Sanchez advanced to the finals by pinning #11 Carolina Vargas of Bridgeland. Vargas was able to take down Mezano with an upper body throw, and get the ref’s slap of the mat at 0:59.
The two top seeds of the 114 lb class, #5 Kira Buford of Cy Park, and #14 Aliyana Holmes of Cy Creek met in the finals. Just one week ago, Buford pinned Holmes in the first period of their match at the Cy Ridge Invitational. One thing that was noticeable in this match was the absence of a second referee, as a matter of fact; none of the girls’ championship matches had a second pair of eyes. It seemed that they were focused on the 3rd-4th place matches, despite there being extra refs along the mats. This was Buford’s match to win, as she had an 8-4 lead into the final 45 seconds, but
