No. 8 Lady Tigers win Henning Invitational, upsetting No. 6 Perry

 

Both Tuttle wrestling teams, the boys and girls, finished as Greg Henning Invitational team champions over the weekend. Hosted annually by Tuttle, the tournament is named after the first coach to lead Tuttle Wrestling to a State Championship. Under Coach Henning’s leadership, Tuttle Wrestling won its first eight state titles, and 43 Tigers became state champions in their respective weight classes, many more than once. Henning was welcomed to Tuttle by Michael London when the program was in its infancy. Together, they laid the groundwork for a program that currently has 21 State Championships under its belt, creating a culture that commands respect wherever they go.

The Lady Tigers finished First Saturday ahead of Perry, 133 team points to 126. A team out of Arkansas finished Third with 108.5 points, and the rest were at least 25 points back.

Tuttle’s Evan Cody was the champion at 190 pounds.

Tuttle Girls Wrestling Head Coach Kristen Finn said Monday, “She came out for wrestling right after softball, after fall break, so she’s been here since probably the end of October. For three months, she’s been in the wrestling room. She’s never wrestled before, and she ended up winning first this weekend. Things are starting to click for her, and she’s even wrestling up, because she weighs barely 180. We have a 170-pounder, so she wanted to wrestle up, and she did so well. It was one of those tournaments. You could tell things were just clicking for her and finally kind of making sense and she’s finally able to put some things together.

“Something really cool about her, the reason why she’s wrestling is because she wants to go into the military, and before she goes to basic training this summer, she wanted to work on the physical side of herself. She decided coming out for wrestling would help her work on some of that, being able to lift and being able to work on her mental toughness, so I thought that was pretty cool.

“Other than that, all of our girls wrestled really hard. There were a couple of matches we lost that we maybe shouldn’t have, but they were good learning experiences to where I fully believe that when it comes down to needing to win those matches, we will.”

Four Lady Tigers finished as silver medalists in their weight classes, including Raylee Mullenix at 110 pounds, Millie Bradley at 130, Jamie Wasinger at 135, and Kurstynn Walker at 235.

The other placers were K`Cee Mooney, who finished Fourth at 100 pounds; Poet Smathers, Fourth at 105; Grace Madison, Fourth at 115; Elizabeth McLeroy, Fifth at 120; Adlee Selcer, Fifth at 130; and Dehlia Harrison was Sixth at 155.

“We did great,” Coach Finn said. “We ended up getting First Place along with the boys, so it was kind of cool. Both teams winning our own tournament was pretty awesome. It was a great day. We got to see lots of teams, lots of small school teams that will be in our Regional possibly. We don’t really know that yet, but we got to see a lot of teams and there were a lot of really tough matches.

“Perry was ranked above us in the rankings, so that should help kind of move us up a little bit, because our last rankings are this upcoming week, and then they come out with our Regional placements. Hopefully, that puts us in a good spot to be where we need to be to where we can put as many girls into the state tournament as we can. I’m pumped about that.”

The Lady Tigers wrestling team is hosting a Girls Night on Thursday against Bridge Creek, beginning at 6 p.m.

Friday, they go to Perry for a dual, and the next day they will go back to Perry for a one-day tournament.