CHS senior Catalina Suarez puts Dakota Moon of Kalama down for the count last Saturday to win the 170-pound weight class at the Southwest District South Sub-regional Championships in Washougal.
CHS senior Catalina Suarez puts Dakota Moon of Kalama down for the count last Saturday to win the 170-pound weight class at the Southwest District South Sub-regional Championships in Washougal.
Sub-regional champion Catalina Suarez will lead a four-member Columbia High contingent into this Saturday's WIAA Region IV Girls Wrestling Tournament in Kelso.
Suarez, a senior, wrestled up a weight class, to 170 pounds, after failing to make her usual weight (155) at last Saturday's Southwest District South Sub-Regional Championships in Washougal. Neverthemind, Suarez won both of her matches by fall (in a four-man bracket to gain a trip to the meet from which the top four girls per weight class will advance to the 2015 Mat Classic in the Tacoma Dome on Feb. 20-21. (Fifth-place finishers will be alternates to state.)
Joining Suarez will be seniors Regina Bell (second at 130) and Tiffany McCoy (fourth at 190), and freshman Alexis McCafferty (third at 110).
Freshen Lily Hill (sixth at 115) and Brittany McCoy (140, no placing) also made their sub-regional wrestling debuts but found themselves in tough eight-man brackets with mat-girls far more experiences than either.
Suarez pinned Kalama's Dakota Moon late in the evening to clinch her title. In her opening bout, she put Sam McKenny of Kelso down for the count.
Bell, who found herself in an eight-man bracket, won her first two matches by fall, then lost a decision in the final to Natasha Williams of Skyview.
Bell and Williams became acquainted through a Portland wrestling club, according to Bruins Girls' Coach Devry Bell, but had never faced each other on the mat before last Saturday.
All four members of McCafferty and McCoy's brackets are moving on to Kelso. McCafferty went 1-1 in her four-man bracket, while McCoy was 0-2.
Overall, Coach Bell was pleased to qualify four of six team members for shots at state tourney berths.
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