CYPRESS — McAllen Memorial’s Serenity De La Garza and Sharyland Pioneer’s Emily Treviño each made the most of their return trips to the UIL’s State Wrestling Championships.
De La Garza and Treviño earned third and fourth-place finishes, respectively, to headline a group of 18 of the Rio Grande Valley’s top wrestlers during the boys and girls Class 5A state tournaments Friday at the Berry Center in Cypress.
“It’s a good experience to come back on the mats,” Treviño said. “It feels great making sure that all my hard work I put in during COVID made me improve. I’m really happy with my performance.”
“It feels amazing placing this year,” De La Garza said. “Last year, I had a tough time out there and this year I really wanted to place. I’m proud of myself.”
Treviño, who finished fifth in the 119-pound weight class at the 2020 state championships, entered this year’s state tournament riding the longest active winning streak of any girls RGV wrestlers.
She entered the competition as one of the favorites among the 5A girls as the Region IV champion with a 20-0 record.
Treviño rose to the occasion and exceeded lofty expectations by winning her opening match via a 7-2 decision over El Paso Austin’s Morayma Montes before suffering her first defeat of the season in the semifinal bout on a pin toward the end of the match at 4 minute and 48-second mark.
After a strong start in her third-place match, she was overpowered by Richmond Foster’s Madison Canales in a 9-2 decision loss, but Treviño was pleased to improve upon last year’s performance.
“It was scary until I got on the mats, but then I was excited,” she said. “I’ve been here before so I knew how everything would go. … I was able to do better than last year and it felt amazing to keep doing good here and continuing what I started last year.”
De La Garza, meanwhile, improved drastically from her debut appearance at the state championships last year.
As a freshman, she tallied a 2-2 record competing in the 138-pound division at the 2020 Class 6A state tournament.
De La Garza rolled into the 5A semifinals after securing a pin victory 75 seconds into her first match of the day.
She stumbled for the first time this season when she was pinned by Humble Kingwood Park’s Maddi Sandquist after 3 minutes and 7 seconds.
The Mustangs’ sophomore rebounded, though, to place for the first time at a state meet, pinning Clint Horizon’s Ashleigh Denny less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds into their third-place match.
The victory improved De La Garza’s record to 19-1 on the season with the back-to-back regional champion’s only loss coming to Sandquist, a back-to-back state champion.
“I’ve been pushing myself and working because I knew coming up here to state was going to be very hard. I’m just proud that I medaled and I wanted to make my coaches and everyone proud of me,” she said.
“I feel great for myself because I just experienced wrestling someone high up and I know I’m a good wrestler after going against her and keeping up with people who are older me.”
PSJA Memorial’s Lorena Torres became the third girls Valley wrestler to place Friday by earning a sixth-place finish in the 185-pound division.
Torres topped McAllen Memorial’s Ashton Burris thanks to a pin 2 minutes and 10 seconds into their consolation semifinal bout — the only Valley-versus-Valley matchup of the day — but was pinned by Houston North Forest’s De’Zirae White in her final match.
Sharyland High’s Paolo Miranda and Rio Grande City’s Rene Treviño also joined De La Garza, Torres Treviño in representing the Rio Grande Valley on the podium with each earning fifth place in their respective weight classes.
Miranda and Treviño, who each entered the state championships as unbeaten Region IV champs, suffered their first major setbacks of the season when they each lost their first matches of the day following first-round byes.
Miranda — who led a contingent of several Sharyland High wrestlers that also included Moses Rodriguez, Andrea Rubio and Noel Torres — was upset in his opening match after being pinned by Lubbock Monterey’s Braydn Valdez, who won the 106-pound individual state championship.
The Sharyland High star responded by winning his final three matches — a dominant 9-1 decision win over Grapevine’s Leo Takahashi and narrow, hard-fought victories against Northwest’s Larry Layman and Lucas Lovejoy’s Jackson Lambert in 2-0 and 3-1 decisions — to earn a fifth-place medal.
“It feels great to place in my first time competing at state,” Miranda said. “I wasn’t worried about my matches. I didn’t even look at the bracket because I just wanted to go against whoever I was supposed to go up against.”
Treviño, meanwhile, battled back and forth with a few adversaries that constituted several of the closest matches of the day in the 126-pound division.
The Rattlers’ senior dropped his first bout of the day in a 7-5 decision after taking an early four-point lead that he struggled to maintain after aggravating his shoulder mid-match.
He responded by reversing roles in his next bout to down Burleson Centennial’s Josh Meador in a 6-3 decision comeback win before pinning Lucas Lovejoy’s Jaden Bennet to advance to the fifth-place match.
Treviño battled to the buzzer with Uvalde’s Reynaldo Perez but ultimately came up short in a 2-0 decision loss to take sixth place, the second-highest finish among all boys competitors representing the RGV.
De La Garza and Miranda, both sophomores, are positioned to return next year among the early favorites among their respective weight classes with each eyeing individual state titles on the mat next year.
“This year, my second year, I felt better and more in command. I feel I’m getting better and better because I can show the technique now out on the mat,” De La Garza said.
“Next year, I want to be the state champion. I want to keep pushing myself to get better and better every year and become a three-time regional champion. I already can’t wait for next year.”
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Twitter: @ByAndyMcCulloch
