Cody Thorn
While Dallas teams dominated the Euless Trinity Trojan Classic in terms of individual titles, it was an out-of-area team that took home the biggest trophy on Saturday.
Lubbock-Cooper made the trek back home to West Texas with the champion title with 184 points, as the No. 1 team in Class 5A, held off the No. 1 team in 6A in Allen, which had 165 1/2 points.
Keller Fossil Ridge took the final trophy with 118 points to finish third in a field of 56 teams from across the state.
Lubbock-Cooper left Wednesday for the event and took part in the JV portion of the tournament on Thursday. On Friday and Saturday, they made the run to a title — one perhaps the even surprised coach Joseph Rios.
“I will be honest, I came here with the intention of probably losing; we had two holes in our lineup,” he said. “And I wanted to get beat. It was exciting to see the girls compete and figure out what they did in practice and the ones that did showed up and did well.”
This was the first year the Pirates had come to the tournament and he was happy with how his squad did as the No. 1-ranked team in Class 5A knocked off Allen, ranked No. 1 in 6A.
“It is huge, I wanted to come here and measure where we at and what we need to fix,” Rios said.
Lubbock-Cooper had one individual champion but had medalists throughout the lineup.
Taylin Silco, ranked No. 1 at 138 in 5A, picked up a 10-2 major decision against Mackenzie Blue of Justin Northwest in the finals. Blue was ranked No. 2 heading into the meet.
Silco is now 25-0 on the season.
“I think we showed we are not the underdogs and can compete with the best of them,” Silco said. “I think it shows what we do in the room is working and I feel we can compete with the best teams anywhere.”
Zoe Bennett (126) made the finals but lost to Class 6A No. 3-ranked Kaylynn Larrison by a pin in the finals.
Avey Mitchell (185) and Kayla McLearen (235) were both third-place finishers for Cooper….
