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Gerald, Peppler finish 2nd in weight class, Doran takes 5th
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Laine Peppler Lilly Gerald
The Rochester John McKee Memorial Invitational is an annual boys wrestling tradition, typically held just before Christmas.
The Rochester Girls Wrestling Invitational might be advancing to a similar level of prestige.
The expanded tournament drew 32 schools Saturday, and the host Lady Zs finished 10th.
Rochester had no individual champions, but Lilly Gerald (105) and Laine Peppler (170) both finished second in their respective weight classes among the seven-person Lady Z contingent.
Peppler scored 24 team points, and Gerald scored 21.
The other Rochester wrestler to place was sophomore Kyra Doran, who was fifth with 17.5 points.
Rilyn Strasser (110), Makenna McKee (125), Lexi Haughs (140) and Elise Enyart (145) did not place. McKee scored 12 points, Strasser scored seven, and Haughs and Enyart scored three apiece.
Crown Point won the team title with 181 points. Rochester finished with 87.5 points.
Gerald, who was fourth at state two years and missed the state tournament last year with elbow and knee injuries, lost 5-3 in the final to Hobart’s Joy Cantu.
Cantu was fourth at state at 105 last year.
“She got injured last year, and that does play a factor into how people perform,” Rochester coach Tristan Wilson said of Gerald. “It takes a lot for somebody to be injured in that way and then come back, and I think today was the first day I felt like she wrestled the entire time as hard as she could. She’s turning the corner. This is the best she’s wrestled this year for sure.”
Peppler overpowered Penn’s Peyton Dwigans by fall in 3:20 and Twin Lakes’ Jaelyn Guthrie by fall in 2:58 before defeating Warsaw’s Kaiah Long 9-6 in the semifinals. She then lost 6-1 to New Haven’s Heaven Gardner in the final.
Peppler has moved up in weight after finishing fifth at state at 145 last year. Wilson said Peppler is wrestling with more confidence this year.
“Laine wrestled tough,” Wilson said. “She’s bumping up, kind of. She’s right there a little bit above 155, so she’s giving up 15 pounds. And then, the girl that she wrestled in the final was very, very strong and doesn’t get out of position a lot, and Laine’s not used to that. She’s not used to wrestling someone who has equal or better strength. We’re going to emulate that a lot more in practice now that we know that that’s a weakness, so hopefully we can fix that.”
Doran, also a star hurdler on the track team, avenged a loss by fall to South Bend Riley’s Isabella Elliott in the quarterfinals earlier in the day and beat Elliott by technical fall in the fifth-place match. Doran also had three falls on the day but also lost twice by fall.
She had an 11-0 lead on Elliott in the match in which she lost.
Wilson said the focus for Doran is on her mental approach.
“She got better today than I think she has all of last season,” Wilson said. “She is super-athletic and super-competitive, and that drives her a lot, but she does not take losses well, and that is something that we are working on. So she wrestled back after taking two losses and wrestled the best she wrestled the last couple matches.”
Perhaps the most impressive performance of the non-placers came from McKee, who lost her first match by fall in 2:00 to Carroll (Fort Wayne)’s Madison Waltz but then tore through the consolation bracket with four consecutive falls. None of those four matches lasted longer than 58 seconds.
“She drew another state qualifier first round, and because her bracket was so big and she lost, she went down to the consey bracket,” Wilson said. “If she would have won a couple more against girls that she’s already beat, then she would have been in for fifth and sixth or third and fourth. It was just bad luck. She was winning the match and got thrown in a headlock. She knows that’s a weakness of hers, and she’s really working on it. But yeah, I’m really excited for her. She may not think she had a great day, but I think she had a great day.”
Every Rochester wrestler won at least one match.
The tournament started at 9 a.m. and ended at approximately 4 p.m. In its third year, the tournament has grown from its more modest beginnings and attracted top wrestlers from all over the northern half of the state.
And it will not be the only big tournament that Rochester will host. The regional will be at Rochester on Jan. 10.
“I think numbers-wise, it’s similar to the last two years, but team-wise and talent-wise, it’s all better,” Wilson said. “Girls wrestling is exploding right now. This tournament will end up mimicking the John McKee in a style where everyone brings a full lineup, and we wrestle an invitational, and it’s just kind of straight up, and we’ll have a finals in the spotlight eventually and really turn this into a high-quality event for all the teams around us.”
Rochester Girls Invitational team results: Crown Point 181, Hobart 152, New Haven 134, Warsaw 105.5, Plymouth 104.5, Rensselaer 103, Mishawaka 102, Wawasee 94, Lakeland 91, ROCHESTER 87.5, Northfield 81, John Glenn 74, Valparaiso 72.5, Illiana Christian 72, Penn 71, North Miami 62, Southport 59.5, Fort Wayne North Side 58, Carroll (Fort Wayne) 58, Frontier 52.5, Chesterton 51, Huntington North 40, South Bend Riley 37, Bremen 29, Twin Lakes 26, Manchester 21, Wabash 16, Mishawaka Marian 14, Peru 10, Concord 8, Whitko 4, Maconaquah 3
ROCHESTER INDIVIDUAL RESULTS
105 – Lilly Gerald (3-1) – second, 110 – Rilyn Strasser (2-2) – DNP, 125 – Makenna McKee (4-1) – DNP, 130 – Kyra Doran (4-2) – fifth, 140 – Lexi Haughs (1-2) – DNP, 145 – Elise Enyart (1-2) – DNP, Laine Peppler (3-1) – second
INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS
100 – Na’Leah Suggs (Mishawaka), 105 – Joanna Cantu (Hobart), 110 – Onica Gradeless (Mishawaka), 115 – Ysabelle Ocampo (New Haven), 120 – Angel Smith (Plymouth), 125 – Ava Strayer (Crown Point), 130 – Kylie Benoit (Crown Point), 135 – Amarah Frieden (Northfield), 140 – Kaylee Smith (Mishawaka), 145 – Aubrey Troutner (Huntington North), 155 – Ella Gahl (Northfield), 170 – Heaven Gardner (New Haven), 190 – Stacia Crabtree (Rensselaer), 235 – Lena Raygoza (Hobart)
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