NATHANIEL MATA | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — The Sharyland Pioneer boys had already taken care of business on day two of the District 16-5A Wrestling Tournament at Sharyland High School on Thursday, but the Diamondbacks weren’t done.
The girls of Pioneer needed their five wrestlers in the medal round to perform to catch Valley View and they did just that.
A trio of sophomores: Alejandra Briere-Segovia, Emily Trevino and Camila Flores all earned falls (also known as pins) to give their team enough points to overtake the Tigers and sweep both team titles.
Even with Pioneer in the lead, the match of the day between Flores and Valley View’s Karyme Garza in the 215-pound division felt like the match to decide which school would take home the hardware.
“Since we’re such a small girl team and most of the guys always get first place, I didn’t want to let them down,” Flores said. “I’ve wrestled before but anything can go wrong. I just needed to focus a lot. Alejandra and Emily are usually the really good wrestlers on this team and I want to be a part of that too.”
All three went to state as freshmen.
“It feels amazing, we’ve been working hard,” Trevino said. “It’s tough, I just have to keep on pushing myself. I’m proud of myself and all of my teammates.
Flores Briere-Segovia (102) and Trevino (119) both pinned their opponents in the first round of the championship match.
“Today, I feel really good about myself because I applied the training I was working really hard for,” Briere-Segovia said. “There’s really nothing else I can say, I did everything I could. I went out here to win and that’s what I did.”
Valley View coach Cole Alexander was pleased with his team’s breakout tournament in the program’s infancy.
“I’m extremely proud of our girls because this is only our second year as a program,” Alexander said. “For girls that have limited experience they just wrestled with a lot of heart. We are very fortunate to have a very good core, many of them are sophomores. We have a good group of young people coming up behind them.”
Rio Grande City senior grappler Samantha Rodriguez won her second district title in as many years in the 110-pound division.
“I just told myself ‘I gotta do this, I have to win. last year I won district, I didn’t want someone to take this away from me, it’s my senior year,” Rodriguez said of the mentality before the championship match.
Other individual champions were: Edcouch-Elsa’s Michelle Zavala at 95 pounds, Carolyn Villarreal of Grulla at 128, Mia Sanchez from Mission Veterans (138), Ashley Aleman of La Joya Palmview (148), Judith Rivals (165) from Palmview and Donna High’s Precious Hernandez, who is a repeat champion.
The Pioneer boys already had a sizeable advantage heading into the medal rounds in the 16-5A district wrestling tournament at Sharyland High School. Still, it was nice to earn individual championships in emphatic fashion.
Jose Rodriguez (145) and Angel Resio (152) earned back-to-back pins to essentially cement the championship.
“It just shows that we put in a lot of work, it was a long year so it feels great to have it all come together,” Rodriguez said.
Resio’s victory came in 41 seconds
“It feels like a dream, it’s awesome to be part of this Diamondbacks team,” Resio said.
Pioneer head coach Richard Eckley said he knew his team was in strong position entering, but wins in tight contests motivated his athletes.
“The kids won every 50-50 match,” Eckley said. “Every toss up our kids found a way to perform at a level for some of them I’ve never seen before at the perfect right time. We made wrestling a momentum sport today.”
Ethan Garza from Pioneer was also an individual champion at 220 pounds.
PSJA Memorial’s Darian Espinoza won the 138-pound district title with a pin over Rio Grande City’s Michael Montalvo.
The senior was grateful to win his first title in his final season on the mat.”
“A blessing, that’s for sure,” Espinoza said. “I wouldn’t be able to do it without God first and foremost. I am pretty pumped up. A bunch of practice and sweat, that’s for sure, and dedication.”
The Wolverines also had a champion at 106 pounds in Abel Alvarado, his finalist opponent, Pioneer’s Diego Serna was injured and didn’t compete in the last match.
Grulla, one of the two Starr County campuses with storied wrestling program had a lone individual champ. Roy Cavazos defeated RGC’s Rene Trevino.
Cavazos had a 4-0 lead for most of the match, but in the third and final round Trevino battled for an advantageous position and earned three points to close the gap to one. Grulla’s senior eventually found an opportunity to earn a pin a win.
“I feel it ended a long feud between us, like who’s better,” Cavazos said. “When I shifted, to the bottom, I was like ‘What did I get myself into?’ It was a stupid mistake that I did that little simple roll and I’m in the bottom but I kept on going.”
Trevino still has an opportunity to get the last laugh as they both advance to Austin next weekend.
The Rio Rattlers saw Elias Sanchez win his second district championship in three seasons in the 113 division. Andres Martinez also won an individual title at 132 pounds for RGC.
Even though Sharyland High finished fifth, the Rattlers had a lot to cheer about when Gabriel Martinez pinned PSJA Memorial’s Mark Gutierrez in the third round, just 22 seconds before the match was set to end.
“It was amazing to know that everyone here was supporting me, it was great,” Martinez said after winning his second district title. “It’s great to know that I can go further and better my school, to put my school out there.”
Valley View’s young program was not the only up-and-coming programs to make noise in Mission. Edcouch-Elsa’s Carlos Neves and Erasmo Uresti won championships at 160 and 170-pounds respectively.
The top four wrestlers will advance to the Class 5A Region IV Tournament next weekend in Austin’s Delco Center.