West Newsmagazine 12-4-19

30 I SPORTS I
December 4, 2019
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3-3913
Team USA and Eureka sophomore Faith Cole [bottom row; second from right]
at the Pan Am Championship in Panama City.
sports
briefs
By WARREN MAYES
High school girls wrestling
Lafayette sophomore Faith Cole wrestled
well in the recent Pan Am Championships.
Cole finished in third place. Cole, who won
a state championship as a freshman, competed
in the Pan Am event that was held
last month in Panama City, Panama. Cole
was on Team USA, which collectively,
placed first in the championship.
Cole wrestled three matches. In her first
match, she wrestled a girl from Mexico but
came off slow and lost 12-6.
“In my second match, I was caught with a
hard loss of 4-3 against a girl from Panama
and wrestled back pinning my third girl
from Chile with a 8-0 lead,” Cole said.
“Criteria through the bracket placed me at
third because of my first loss.”
Cole said the championship was a “great
experience.”
“I made so many new friends here, and
the team as a whole was great,” Cole said.
“Our team took first as a whole, almost
doubling the team in second. Our boys
team won both styles as well with every
boy winning both styles. So proud of our
teams.”
Cole also called the championship,
including the losses, a learning experience
for the future.
“I came back strong but still ended in
third place,” Cole said. “It was not the
result that I had hoped for, but I was happy
that I had my mistakes to learn [from].
All the different wrestlers and how they
wrestle were all so different it was fun to
watch how everyone wrestles so different
in different countries. I have my own
issues I deal with personally, but this was
very helpful to push me to see where my
limits are … I don’t think the [nervousness]
or the excitement will ever go away.
I have wrestled hundreds of matches, but I
still feel the same or even more amount of
nerves in different situations.”
Cole’s goal is to return to the state meet
and strive to achieve victory in future
championships.
“I am going to be honest and say I didn’t
wrestle to my best ability at this tournament,”
Cole said. “The end results aren’t
what I wanted, but I was so happy with the
experience a whole … I am excited to be
back with my high school team and family
and ready to compete again.”
High school girls cross-country
The Eureka girls cross-country team
recently earned its 10th state trophy in
the school’s cross-country history. Eureka
finished third with 95 points at the Class
4 cross-country state championship held
Nov. 9 at Gans Creek Recreational Area in
Columbia, Missouri.
That score put the Wildcats behind Lee’s
Summit West’s state winning total of 109
points and Rock Bridge’s 112 points. The
last state trophy for Eureka came in 2013
when the Wildcats finished fourth.
“Both Lee’s Summit West and Rock
Bridge are very good teams,” Lewis said.
“Lee’s Summit West was the defending state
champion and the heavy favorite to win
again. Rock Bridge beat us once during the
season and we beat them once. I knew we
could compete with them, but in the end,
they had a little bit better day than we did.”
The Eureka Wildcats girls cross-country team finished third at the Class 4 state championship on Nov. 3.
Eureka won its last four meets, including
the district and sectional races heading
into the state meet. Winning the sectional
meant the Wildcats would compete for the
26th time in the 41-year history of the state
meet for girls with the full team qualifying.
According to Lewis, finishing third was
a good accomplishment for the girls.
“There are 100 schools in Class 4, so
being in the top three is definitely an
accomplishment to be proud of and to celebrate,”
Lewis said.
Sophomore Leah Kleekamp placed fifth
with 18:40.7 seconds for Eureka. Lewis
was pleased with her performance and said
her time was a “personal record.”
“Leah had the best race of her life,”
Lewis said. “In our discussions about her
strategy coming into the race, we talked
about being able to finish in the top 15, but
being top five was better than we expected.
She always has had a big finishing kick,
but we knew she would need to push the
pace from further out from the finish for
this race.”
Looking back, Lewis said this was a
solid season for the Wildcats.
“The thing that I will take away from
this season actually has nothing to do
with any of the race results,” Lewis said.
“The girls set really high goals for this
season and everyone, from the fastest on
the team to the slowest, bought into those
goals. We had 40 or more girls showing
up for summer practices before the season
ever truly started because they all knew
the amount of work that was required to
achieve those goals.”
[Photo by Chris Auckley]