The Manhattan High School Girls Wrestling team has secured the Centennial League gold trophy for the first time in program history.
“We just won first place for the first time as a team at League,” senior Alexis Haeusler said. “We’ve been doing pretty good as a team overall. We’ve been placing top three at most tournaments.”
This has been a standout season for the squad, with many stellar performances despite a tough schedule, featuring many large, two-day tournaments.
“It’s been really good,” junior Alayna Slifer said. “Our team has definitely improved, and I feel like we all have way better mindsets heading into our tournaments.”
While the squad had a setback after losing some seniors after last season, they have had many competitors rise up to the challenge.
“It’s going to be hard because we don’t have a lot of seniors, but we still have good wrestlers,” sophomore Eleanor Radi said.
It has been a busy season for the team, who have attended many bigger tournaments, like competitions down in Grand Island, Nebraska, right before Christmas Break. The team also battled down at the Tournament of Champions in Newton, as well as a tournament in Council Grove and at Washburn-Rural High School before their big win at League.
“We call it the final stretch, so we have League, a week later we’ll have Regionals, and then two weeks later we’ll have State,” junior Ava Gary-Hernandez said.
The League win meant a lot for the members of the team, especially due to it being the first Centennial League win for Manhattan High Schools Girls Wrestling.
“It felt really good. I felt really accomplished,” Haeusler said. “I think our team has come a really, really long way. We had a lot of people who were sick, injured, or just gone, but I think it felt good for everybody.”
As the team gears up for Regionals and State, they focus on correcting mistakes and boosting their teammates through the last stretch of the season.
“We are doing a lot of conditioning, training techniques that kind of counter what some of our opponents do, we just do a lot of technique in general,” Haeusler said. “We are focusing on what we already know and just like getting better at it.”
As the season wraps up, seniors on the team reflect on their time as a Manhattan High School wrestler.
“It’s definitely going to be sad. I’m going to miss the team a lot,” Haeusler said. “I think that we’ve come so far. It makes me really proud to see everybody. It’ll also be a bit relieving for me, because you know, I don’t have to, every single day, stress about weight or anything.”
