The Berry Center, home of this year’s UIL Championship, hosted the District 10 championships on the 31st. Participating teams included all 12 Cypress Fairbanks ISD high schools. This article will focus on a recap of the Girls’ Championship matches.
Using the WrestlingTexas rankings from January 20th, there were twenty-two wrestlers who were ranked, with Twelve in the Top 10, and eight in the Top 5.
All photos from Brian S. Doyle:
100 lbs.
The seedings and rankings were proven to be accurate; as the second seed, #7 Aubrey Williams (42-11) of Cy Falls defeated the third seed, #19 Kayla Miller (35-9) of Cy Ranch, and the top seed, #4 Yvette Zepeda (34-7), defeated Williams in the finals.
Zepeda used the first period to build a 5-0 lead with a single leg takedown in the first half-minute, and continued the period with a strong ride that prevented Williams from mounting any type of offense. Zepeda turned Williams over with an armbar at the end of the period for a NF-2. Zepeda chose top with conviction, and quickly went back to the armbar, turning Williams over again, and getting the pin at 2:26.
107 lbs.
Leading the way at 107 is #1 ranked Arianna Beltran (42-0) of Cy Ranch, last year’s runner-up, who has been on a mission all year to prove that she can be the best in her weight class, and that last year’s runner-up finish at State was a fluke. According to TrackWrestling, her four-year overall record sits at 180-25. Leaving out her ninth-grade season, her record for the last three years is 142-9. That is very impressive.
According to the rankings, Amanda Alvarado, was at #5, but she did not compete at District. and when I checked TrackWrestling, she hadn’t wrestled a match since the first weekend of January at the CFISD, although she did receive 2 forfeit wins after that.
Beltran burned through her competition with first period pins of 0:35, 0:26, and 0:54 in the finals against Rocio Ribeiro (22-13). She is an intimidating force on the mat because of her strength and technical skills, and she indeed seemed to intimidate Ribeiro, as she easily scored her takedown with a collar-tie snap down, and spin behind. After that, its difficult to describe, even after rewatching the video 5 times, because I couldn’t see how she tied up her Ribeiro’s hands/elbows underneath, but Beltran was able to turn her over and end up with the pin.
114 lbs.
Alexie Hurtado (44-9), ranked #5 of Cy Park, and #9 Hailey Miranda (34-14) of Cy Creek were the ranked wrestlers in this weight class, but both were upset in the semifinals: Hurtado by Ella Schmidt (30-6) of Cy Ranch, and Evelynn Garcia (32-11) of Cy Springs beat Miranda.
In the final match, despite being taken down by Garcia first, and almost being caught in a cradle, Schmidt slipped out of the cradle and grabbed Garcia’s head and reversed and quickly got the pin at 1:24.
120 lbs.
In probably the best match of the day, in my opinion, #2 Chamille Bryson (32-2) of Cy Creek took on unranked, Aviana Caceres (8-3) of Langham Creek. Bryson has only lost in the finals of the CFISD and the Texas Women’s to the #2 and 3 wrestlers in 5A: Genevieve Bellino and Akeelah Moore. Caceres has just returned to 6A action after having to sit out a year due to in-district transfer requirements from last January. As a 9th grader two seasons ago, she qualified for the State tournament.
