Piatt's OT: Girls' wrestling is taking off

Feb. 1—There's a junior girls' wrestler at Northeastern High School in Fountain City, Ind., by the name of Heather Crull.

I followed the first two years of her high school career pretty closely when I was a reporter in the area, and she dominated her male counterparts. She totaled 86 wins and only seven losses in that time and wrestled for Team USA last summer.

Crull has taken it up a notch this year, finally winning her first girls' wrestling state title. While it takes nothing away from her accomplishments, girls' wrestling is not an IHSAA-sanctioned sport. Covering Crull's success made me realize and appreciate the rapid growth of the sport, and that leads me into my first talking point of this week's column.

A look back

Girls' wrestlers making history

Numerous area athletes competed and thrived in this past Saturday's IHSA girls' wrestling regional in Mt. Zion. It's the third year the IHSA has hosted a state series for girls' wrestling, but the first with regional tournaments held.

Most notably, Isabelle Leyhe and Jaycee Fancher won regional titles in their respective weight classes — Leyhe at 120 pounds and Fancher at 125 — to lead Mahomet-Seymour to a second-place finish in the 37-team event. Other area champions included Marrissa Miller from Monticello at 110, Jordan Tyler from Urbana at 190 and Phoenix Molina from Unity at 235.

Those five will compete in the Peoria Richwoods Sectional on Feb. 9-10 along with 21 other area wrestlers who placed in the top six of their weight class at the regional. Justice Milligan of Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley/Fisher at 100 and Taylor Owens of Oakwood/Salt Fork at 140 took home runner-up honors. Ava Beldo of Centennial at 115, Londyn Grant of Champaign Central at 130, Avery Schlickman of GCMS/Fisher at 140 and Grace Ribbe of M-S at 190 each finished third. Joi Lord of Clinton at 125, Maddie Wells of St. Joseph-Ogden at 130, Rickasia Ivy of Urbana at 140, Franciana Kalanga of Urbana at 170 and Addison Briggs of Westville at 235 all placed fourth.

Gracie Pattison at 100 and Emma Shelato at 145, both from Bismarck-Henning/Rossville-Alvin, Kalista Granadino of Mahomet-Seymour at 115, Aunaca Wickware of GCMS/Fisher at 120, Randi Campe of Urbana at 125, Laney Cook of Westville at 130 and Alicia Navarrete of Rantoul at 155 all placed fifth. Jade Stevenson of Clinton at 120, Tauhnisjha Hart of Urbana at 135 and Alexis Bow of Clinton at 170 rounded out the area sectional qualifiers by placing sixth.

This has been an especially busy season for Grant, who not only became the Maroons' first girls' wrestler to advance in the postseason, but she's also a member of Central's competitive dance team that competed at the sectional meet on Jan. 20.

A touching moment for Central senior

You see it all the time on social media. A basketball team puts in a kid who doesn't get to play much, if at all, the opposing team lets that kid score and the crowd goes wild. Those are always heartwarming moments, sometimes tear-jerkers if you know the backstory, and I finally got to see one in person last week.

Champaign Central senior Loreal Allen tore her ACL over the summer, effectively ending her final high school basketball season before it was even close to starting. In a home game against Danville last Thursday, the coaches made a deal to give Allen one of those special moments.

The Vikings won the tip, and Central let them score. Danville then returned the favor, as the Maroons passed the ball up the court to Allen, who shot it from the right baseline. Of course, nothing can ever go as planned, and her shot missed off the rim. Allen put her hands over her face in embarrassment but still had a smile. Her teammate grabbed the ball and passed it back to her, but she wasn't looking, and it bounced off her head. Allen continued laughing and smiling her way through it and eventually made a layup for her first basket of the season. She subsequently checked out of the game and kept that smile on her face all the way to the bench.

Vote for Athletes of the Week

The first week of our new Athletes of the Week voting process, powered by Copper Creek Contractors, was a huge success, as we saw thousands of votes come in. This week has been just as good, and you have until noon Thursday to keep voting under the "Prep Sports" tab at news-gazette.com.

This week's boys' finalists are Garren Barker (Champaign Central swimming), Aidyn Beck (Champaign Central basketball), Corbin Ragle (GCMS/Fisher wrestling) and JaVaughn Robinson (Danville basketball). The girls' finalists are Isabelle Leyhe (M-S wrestling), Addison Lucht (Cissna Park basketball), Ilyana Nambo (Iroquois West basketball) and Raegen Stringer (Unity basketball).

A look ahead

Centennial Hall of Fame inductees

A few Charger legends will be inducted into Centennial's Hall of Fame at 3 p.m. on Saturday in the high school auditorium. Honorees will include Bryan Banks (Class of 2002, football), Tamara Butler (Class of 2004, girls' basketball), Tricia Johnson (Class of 2002, girls' soccer), Quinn Moller (Class of 1995, baseball and golf), Erik Mueller (Class of 1984, wrestling and baseball), Kelly Schmidt (Class of 2005, volleyball) and Justin Willis (Class of 1999, football and baseball).

Central signing day

Champaign Central is holding a signing day at 3 p.m. next Wednesday in the school's commons for three of its student-athletes. Sam McArthur is signing to continue his baseball career at Illinois, Aleigha Garrison will run track and cross-country at Olivet Nazarene and Charlie Hobbs will play baseball at Parkland.

Shoutouts

Jack Barnhart

Last week, the Centennial senior multi-sport stud committed to McKendree University, where he will play football and wrestle.

Kacie Sisk

It's the season of 1,000-point scorers, and Sisk was one of the first to reach the career milestone last week, scoring 15 points in the Purple Riders' close loss to Arthur Christian last Wednesday.

ILyana Nambo

With the final seconds winding down and the score tied at 38 last Wednesday, Nambo let a three-pointer fly. It went in as the buzzer sounded to give the Raiders a comeback win against Beecher. Nambo scored 14 of her 22 points in the fourth quarter and made six three-pointers.

St. Thomas More wrestling

The Sabers' regular season ended last Wednesday, and they're sending six confident wrestlers into Saturday's Class 1A Unity Regional at the Rocket Center in Tolono. STM has a small team, so it can't win many dual meets, but its six individual wrestlers finished the regular season with a combined record of 117-25. The definition of small but mighty.

Raegen Stringer

The Unity senior scored a team-high 19 points in last Wednesday's 40-33 win against Pontiac to eclipse the 1,000-point mark for her career. She followed that up with a career-high 29 points in a win Monday.

Henry Thomas

Two days after Stringer reached her milestone, fellow Rocket Henry Thomas got to 1,000 points, scoring 21 for the Rockets' boys' basketball team in a win against Prairie Central.

Aidyn Beck

Just a few days after scoring his 1,000th point, Beck did something you don't see every day in high school basketball, recording a triple-double (15 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists) in Central's 72-34 win against Bloomington last Friday night.

JaVaughn Robinson

"Diddy," as they call him in Danville, scored 15 points in a 76-71 win against Springfield Cavalry this past Saturday at the Peoria Manual Shootout to reach the 1,000-point milestone.

Molly Buckles

Buckles had a big Monday with 35 points. It wasn't quite enough to give LeRoy an overtime win against Tri-Valley, but it did get her over the 1,000-point mark.

Gavin Schunke

The Milford senior became the second area basketball player of the week to put up a triple-double, doing so on Tuesday night with 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a comfortable win against Cissna Park.