Photos by Jessica McGraw

The Pella Girls Wrestling team is sending two to Coralville after a 3rd place finish in the 2A Regional Tournament in Ottumwa. Kenadi Montgomery and Emma Smith both wrestled back to place 2nd in their respective bracket.

Head Coach Adam Hale:
“We entered a loaded tournament with 12 participants of our own, and seven of them ended up on the podium (top 4). No one’s path to State is ever easy, but with how our team has done this season, I think it’s pretty fitting that our qualifiers took the more difficult route to qualification. Emma lost in the semis, then came back to get 3rd to force a true-2nd place match which she won in the ultimate tiebreaker to punch her ticket to State. Her road included beating two people that had beaten her multiple times earlier this season. Kenadi took an even longer path by losing first round and then coming all the way back to get second. She not only beat multiple people she’d lost to in the past, but even pinned a girl that had beaten her first round of this tournament! Our team hasn’t known the meaning of the word quit all season and have won some matches others would have counted them out of all year long, so it just makes sense for our girls to completely avoid the path of least resistance. This group loves wrestling hard!

There’s nothing that quite fills you with pride at the same time your heart breaks like a State Qualifying wrestling meet. Besides our two Qualifiers, our entire team wrestled well tonight and we ended up finishing third as a team. I’m incredibly proud of the effort across the board, I’m excited for our two new State Qualifiers, and I hurt with our girls who didn’t advance tonight. But from day one in our program we’ve been telling our girls that our wins and losses are not what define us, it’s how we carry ourselves, how we train, how we compete, and our attitude through it all, and I think that Pella should be proud of these girls we have wrestling because you’d be hard-pressed to find a group with more heart, fight, and support for each other than this group.”

100 Natalie Mandity, 0-2
110 Natalie Wichhart, 0-2
115 Isabella Smith, 3rd, 3-2, 3 Falls
120 Jenna VanWyk, 1-2
125 Danica VanBaale, 3rd, 3-1, 3 Falls
130 Adelyn Smith, 3rd, 3-2, 2 Falls, 1 Maj. Dec.
135 Keandi Montgomery, 2nd, 4-1, 2 Falls, STATE QUALIFIER
140 Julianna Maldonado, 4th, 2-2, 1 Fall, 1 Tech. Fall
145 Emma Smith, 2nd, 3-1, 1 Fall, STATE QUALIFIER
155 Abbi Lemke, 1-2, 1 Tech. Fall
170 Izzy Roose, 1-2, 1 Fall
190 Sam TeGrootenhuis, 4th, 1-2, 1 Fall