Louisburg girls medal three at Wellsville tournament

WELLSVILLE — It was just its second true tournament of the season, but the Louisburg girls wrestling team left the Aaron Patton Memorial Tournament with its fair share of hardware.

Three Wildcats earned medals as Brooklyn DeWeese, Brianna Caraway and Leola Eslinger all finished in the top four Friday at the tournament at Wellsville High School.

In the team standings, Louisburg finished ninth with 65 points in the 22-team tournament.

“I was really proud of all the girls overall with how hard they battled,” Louisburg coach Heather Eslinger said. “One of our obstacles this season is we have a team of only 11 girls, which isn’t even a full team. So we take our girls to any girl wrestling events that we can. Some of those are labeled JV, and some are varsity, and so we might have a JV wrestler wrestling in a varsity event, which was what Wellsville was. There was a hard battle for a lot of these girls, who were wrestling way above their skill level.”

Freshmen Brooklyn DeWeese (115 pounds) and Brianna Caraway (130) each finished third overall, and DeWeese earned her second varsity medal of the season.

DeWeese battled back from a first round loss to Jayhawk-Linn’s Rowan Day. She rattled off four straight pins, including one in a rematch with Day in the third place match.

As for Caraway, she had a busy day with six matches, but she finished 5-1 in the competition and all five of her wins came by pin. 

Caraway lost her quarterfinal match to Baldwin’s Keziah Moses, but reeled off four straight wins, including a second period pin over Wellsville’s Ava Yanez in the third place match.

“I was especially proud of Brooklyn and Brianna,” Eslinger said. “Even though both of these girls are freshmen, they are at a varsity skill level, but they still had some tough battles. I was really proud of how Brooklyn didn’t let that first loss in the morning get to her head and she overcame and won that match for third place.

“Brianna had even a little bit more of a tough day. She ended up having six matches, which even for a seasoned wrestler, is a lot of matches. She had some really tough situations that she had to battle back from. At one point she was on her back and coach Bovaird and I both thought that she was done for and she was going to get pinned. In a split second she had moved position and she came out on top with the win for third place.”

Sophomore Leola Eslinger took fourth place at 145 pounds as she recorded a 2-2 day. After losing in the semifinals, Esllinger battled back to get a pin over Wellsville’s Addy Gardner to reach the third place match.

In that match, Eslinger lost by pin to Jayhawk-Linn’s Gracee Willard to end up in fourth.

Coach Eslinger saw a lot from her team as the young Wildcat group gained some much-needed experience.

“Some of the other girls that I was really proud of wrestling Friday at Wellsville was Nora Smith, who even though she went 0-2, she scored her first points, which is a great thing,” coach Eslinger said. “It’s always great to see progress even if it doesn’t come out as a win. I was also really proud of Evelyn Rue. She was a brand new wrestler this year, came in November not knowing anything. On Friday she ended up having her first two wins, which were both pins.

“I was just so proud that I could see those skills starting to click with Nora and Evelyn and they’re starting to understand what wrestling is and where they need to be on the mat to score. It’s only going to go up from here.”

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