Northeastern's Crull sisters highlight Wayne County at IHSGW State Finals.

KOKOMO, Ind. — It was three years in the making for Northeastern junior Heather Crull.

And although she had wished her 105-pound class championship match at the Indiana High School Girls Wrestling State Finals was more challenging, at the end of the night Crull could call herself a state champion.

In Kokomo Memorial Gymnasium on Friday, Jan. 12, Crull defeated each of her four opponents by pinfall and outlasted 15 others in her class to win the title.

What was even more impressive about Crull's showing that day wasn't that she pinned all of her opponents, but that she did so in under two minutes with all of them.

"It's satisfying because I've been working on it for a little while," she said. "Kind of wish I had a harder match in the finals, but it is what it is."

Heather, who entered the day as the top-ranked girl in her class according to IndianaMat, started it off against Mooresville freshman Cadence Williams, who was 22-4 for the season. She won in 37 seconds.

Her second-round match was against Fort Wayne North Side's Jacki Shackleford, a 20-8 senior who won her regional and was runner-up at the Rochester Semi-State. Crull ended it in 24 seconds.

The semifinal match against Indiana Creek's Libby Dowty, the second-ranked wrestler at 105 and was regional and Mooresville Semi-State champion, was Crull's toughest match of the day, but like her two previous matches was able to pin Dowty in the first period at 1:57.

Her championship opponent was an up and coming freshman from Daleville in Kynlie Keffer, the fourth-ranked girl and champion at the Jay County Regional and Rochester Semi-State.

Crull won just as quickly as her first two matches, pinning her in 30 seconds to complete an undefeated girls season at 13-0 to go along with her 22-0 season record against boys.

While she still has the boys tournament to go, Crull said that she will continue going to camps and tournaments overseas as she hopes to prepare for the Olympics when she's of age.

The first two times Heather made the championship match, which was then the 106-pound class before the Indiana High School Girls Wrestling reclassified them this year, she faced off against Fort Wayne Snider's and now New Haven's Julianna Ocampo.

This year, Ocampo competed at 110 pounds and was the roadblock to Heather's sister Olivia, as Ocampo pinned her in 1:43 in the semifinal on her way to winning her third state title.

"I wasn't really too disappointed about losing. I was more disappointed of how fast I got pinned," she said. "I was nervous, but I wasn't as nervous as I was expecting to be a few weeks ago."

Heather's advice to Olivia against her former adversary was to "just wrestle her, hold your own and wrestle your style."

She added that they knew the style of wrestling Ocampo liked, though Olivia denied remembering the advice.

Olivia bounced back, however, in the third-place match to defeat Switzerland County junior Avy Burkholder, pinning her in 2:54.

"I started when I was really young," she said. "I definitely got my butt kicked a lot but I grew up around wrestling and just being at all those tournaments and watching it definitely helped Watching my sister wrestle also helped ... Making third place, I'm decently proud about it."

In her first two matches, she pinned East Noble's Aubrey Diehm in 28 seconds and defeated Lake Central's Reese Kasprzak in a 6-2 decision.

Rest of Wayne County goes down in first round

Like Northeastern, Centerville sent two representatives, juniors Tzuri Phillips at 120 and Carissa Shadle at 135. It was the first appearance for both of them at state.

Unfortunately for both of them, they were ousted in the first round to two girls who had only lost one match heading into the day.

Phillips lost to eventual seventh-placer, Hanover Central sophomore Kylie Benoit by fall in 2:57, while Shadle was pinned by Penn senior Haylee Selis in 1:09. Selis was fifth at 138 the previous year.

"I don't think I was in the right mindset today, but there's nothing you can do" Phillips said of her match. "All you can do is look forward instead of focus on the past."

Centerville has been growing its program over the past few years with last season being the first that the Bulldogs have seen a full team and this season with nine or ten girls on the team.

Shadle was introduced to the sport last year by Phillips through volleyball, as the two had gotten tired of a lack of playing time on the court.

"I heard that she was a wrestler, and I was kind of looking into it," Shadle said. "Last year, I heard that we were starting a girls wrestling team, so that kind of encouraged me to start just knowing there'd be other girls around me."

Shadle continued, saying that she was glad she joined the sport given the fact that everyone has an equal opportunity to give their all on the mat.

Phillips on the other hand has never not known wrestling. She's been around the sport since she was six years old, thanks to all five of her brothers being wrestlers and having her dad as an assistant coach.

Despite the early exits, both were optimistic of their chances of returning next year.

"It definitely stings a little bit to be pinned in the first period, but I'm just happy that I made it further than last year," Shadle said. "I'm just gonna keep working and trying to continue to improve and hopefully be able to place in state next year."

Richmond senior Ashley Sparks made her first appearance at the state finals as well after taking a year off. In 2022, she wrestled for Owen Valley as a sophomore at 152 but did not get out of regionals.

"She came back to the sport because of just a lot of recent interest," Red Devils coach Ben Wissel said. "We've been trying to build the program and then obviously when you promote wrestling to both boys and girls, which is what we've tried to do, there's girls like her that have seen the growth and they have more interest to get back involved."

In Kokomo, Sparks wrestled Whiteland senior Leila Thomas in the first round of 170, who was third at 182 for Alexandria the year prior. The match went the distance but at the end of the third round, Thomas was declared the winner in a 3-0 decision. Thomas ended up placing third.

"The girl she was going up against, she was somebody that was seasoned for women's wrestling in Indiana," Wissel said. "She had prior exposure here and had competed at this tournament, so we knew maybe we were lacking experience against our first opponent. But she fought hard and that match could have went one way or the other. It just came down to a critical moment like all matches that end up close like that do."

Sparks' overall record for the season ends at 6-2. While Wissel said he wasn't sure if Sparks planned to wrestle after high school, he said that's she's intending on attending college at Ball State University.

Hagerstown's Abbie Gilbert was one of 39 freshmen (there were 224 total wrestlers) to make the state finals, but had one of the toughest draws out of all them in the 130-pound class, top-ranked and defending state champion at 132 from Northfield, senior Ellie Gahl.

Gahl was 26-0 with 24 pins heading into the match and made short work of Gilbert, pinning her in 42 seconds as she went on to place third.

While her day ended as quickly as it started, Gilbert understood the challenge she was facing heading into the match.

"I knew she was really good, and I was excited to wrestle her because it would help me get more experience. I could learn something from it," she said. "I wasn't expecting too much of it. I wanted to last a little bit longer, but it was really good."

Gilbert's season record against other girls ended at 7-3, while her overall record against boys and girls was 13-10 after the day.

Gilbert had only started wrestling her eighth-grade year, and with her getting to Kokomo in her first year of high school, coach Anton Payne was optimistic that she will be back.

"Abbie's everything you want in a wrestler," he said. "She's attentive, disciplined and works hard in the room. She's not scared to wrestle anybody, and her technique is probably the best in our room. I'm very proud of her, and we've got three years of this stuff. I guarantee she climbs the podium and I'm excited."

Gilbert was also just the second Tiger to get to the girls state finals since Traci Weber made the podium at 120 in 2018 and 2020, and at 126 in 2019.

"It's been really exciting," she said. "The experience so far has been really good and it's just been fun to be here."

Many of the girls seasons are not yet over, however, as some also compete in the boys season as girls wrestling is not an IHSAA-sanctioned sport. As an emerging sport, the future of it is expected to be discussed sometime this year.

This article originally appeared on Richmond Palladium-Item: Wayne County IHSGW State Finals recap