Girl Has Historic Mat Match
Lost in the myriad of matches taking place on the 24 mats during Mat Classic X was a historic event - Montesano sophomore Arielle Bradbury became the first female to compete in a Washington state wrestling tournament.
“It’s exciting to be the first girl to do this,” she said. “But I try not to think about it or let it go to my head.”
A 101-pounder, Bradbury won a match, eliminating Eatonville’s Austin Elliff 13-4 in the consolation round. Obviously, he’s not the first to lose to Bradbury or she wouldn’t have been here.
“Guys don’t like losing to girls,” she said. “When I win they react in three ways. They either act happy, start crying right away or they go beat on the wall or something.”
Bradbury is 5-foot-2, 99 pounds and coached by her father.
“I feel like I did pretty well,” she said. “I came out and wrestled hard. I made a few mistakes. I can’t ever give up because those guys are stronger than me and nobody wants to be beaten by me.”
Bradbury was the 1997 94-1/2-pound girls national freestyle champion.
She lost her first match at state 15-2 to Kit Ayers of Riverview and after her win was pinned in 2:43 by Lakeside’s Kris Mathews.
Perfecto
Ben VomBaur of Evergreen was undefeated heading into the 115-pound final against Chris Montgomery of Gonzaga Prep and stayed that way with a 5-0 victory. That’s undefeated in his three years of high school wrestling - 102 matches.
Included in that streak was a 1-0 win over Montgomery in last year’s 108-pound title match.
To get the rematch, Montgomery held off J.P.
Marinacci of Tahoma 3-2 in the semifinals. Marinacci won the AA 108-pound title. His only loss in two years before Montgomery was to VomBaur last month, and he beat Montgomery 3-2 earlier in the season.
VomBaur’s 100th win came against Shawn Thayer of Spanaway Lake. The last wrestler to go undefeated for three years was Spanaway Lake’s Jeff Gotcher, who finished 101-0 when he won his third title in 1987.
VomBaur wasn’t allowed to wrestle at the high-school level when he was in ninth grade.
Close call
North Kitsap 190-pounder Terry Wiley failed to place despite entering the tournament undefeated, but it had nothing to do with his wrestling.
A week ago he fell asleep while driving his pickup and rolled it. He got 40 stitches in his forehead.
He pinned his first opponent and had a big lead in the quarterfinals when the stitches broke, forcing him to default. He got stitched up but couldn’t return for his consolation bout.
Mat classics
The four tournaments featured 896 wrestlers from 229 schools. … Thirty-three finalists and 17 champions from 1997 returned. … Of the 31 GSL wrestlers, 19 got medals. The Big Nine sent 25 and got 18 medals… . The East has 12 wrestling schools and they filled 20 of 56 semifinal spots and won 31 of the 112 medals. The Frontier League had eight medalists, six from East Valley, which brought eight wrestlers.
The Freeman and Almira/ Coulee-Hartline teams won academic awards. Ferris also won the award for gymnastics. … Howard Raines, a Snohomish graduate who started the Totems program in 1959, and George Wilfong, who was at Puyallup from 1968-95, were inducted into the Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame. … Coaches of the Year, selected by their peers, were Jeff Michaelson of Sehome (4A), Charlie Hinds of Camas (3A), Ron Lepper of Mount Baker (2A) and Dave Mitchell, Tonasket (A/B).
Big splash
Just up the road at the State 2A swimming meet, Pat Fowler, a junior at Seattle Prep, didn’t just set a state record, he established a national mark. His time of 53.66 seconds in the 100 breaststroke Friday obliterated the state mark of 55.09 he set a day earlier.
Fowler’s time beat the high school record of 54.35 set in 1990 by Nelson Diebel in New Jersey. Since 1975, Washington swimmers have set only three national records, boys or girls, at state.
, DataTimes