UKIAH >> Christina Wilson of Upper Lake High School and Kailei Foltmer of Middletown High School are going to Visalia. It’s not Disneyland to be sure, but there’s no better place to be in late February if you’re these two.
Wilson, an unseeded freshman, and Foltmer, a fourth seed, both exceeded expectations and then some by placing third in their respective weight divisions — Wilson at 121 pounds and Foltmer at 131 — on Saturday during the North Coast Section Girls’ Wrestling Championships at Ukiah High School. Since only the top three in each weight class advance to state, Wilson and Foltmer are in select company come Feb. 27-28 at the CIF State Championships in the aforementioned Visalia.
“She wants to be a state champion and she can compete with the other 26 girls (in her weight class) who will be there,” Upper Lake second-year coach Brandon Sneathen said of Wilson, the first wrestler he’s sent to a state tournament. “She has a shot at placing and becoming a state champion.”
“Wilson came out of nowhere,” Middletown fifth-year coach Brian Hunt said. “She started thumping everybody. She definitely made a name for herself there (at Ukiah).”
Hunt is sending a wrestler to the girls’ state championship for the fifth year in a row — every year the tournament has existed — and is excited for Foltmer, a junior.
“After she lost in the semifinals, I told her she was in one and done territory,” Hunt said. “If she lost again, she wasn’t going to state. She took care of business.”
Christina Wilson
Wilson lost in the quarterfinals early Saturday to eventual runner-up Hayley Aguilar of James Logan High School by third-round pin. After that loss, Wilson simply destroyed everything in her path leading up to a 9-7 overtime decision against three-time state qualfier Randi McMahan of Maria Carrillo in the third-place mach.
Before squaring off with the No. 2-seeded McMahan for the final available state berth, Wilson pinned three straight wrestlers in the consolation bracket, two in less than a minute. She needed on 26 seconds to beat Sammi Kotta of Concord High School and 35 seconds to defeat Leticia Lugo of Hayward. In the consolation semifinals, she pinned Autumn Adayan of Casa Grande in the second round.
“She had four straight wins after losing her only match of the day,” Sneathen said. “She very much dominated in her weight class and she’s only a freshman.”
Against McMahan in the third-place match, Wilson trailed 7-5 late in the third period before scoring a reversal with 20 seconds left to knot the score at 7. Thirty seconds into overtime she scored a two-point takedown to end McMahan’s bid to reach a fourth straight state tournament.
“I told her before the season began that if she paid attention to me and worked hard, she would get to state,” Sneathen added. “It (the overtime win) was pretty emotional for the both of us. She started crying and I had was holding back the tears. There was a lot of support from the fans for Christina. It was a good vibe.”
Kailei Foltmer
While Wilson had to win four matches to reach state, Foltmer needed only two victories after reaching the 131-pound semifinals by beating Gabby Jones of Newmark Memorial on a 43-second pin in the quarterfinal round early Saturday. Foltmer then lost to eventual 131-pound champion Erica Sotelo of Albany in the semifinals — Sotelo pinned Foltmer with only eight seconds left in the third round.
Dropped into the consolation bracket, Foltmer proved to be every bit as dominant and efficient as Wilson was for Upper Lake. She pinned Corina Barnes of Deer Valley one second into the second round of their consolation semifinal match. In her third-place match that followed and with a state berth hanging in the balance, Foltmer needed only 98 seconds to pin Miranda Eoff of Washington High School.
“She earned her way there and I think she’ll do fine there,” Hunt said of Foltmer’s prospects at the state tournament. “She has wrestled a lot of the good girls in the other sections who will be there (in Visalia). She’s wrestled the SacJoaquin champion like four times and the Central Coast champion once. She held her own against those girls.”
Amidst a string of impressive victories, Foltmer’s best may have been her win over Barnes in the consolation semifinals, according to Hunt.
“She put the boots to that girl,” Hunt said.
After Foltmer secured her state berth against Eoff, Hunt said it was pretty much a toss-up as to who was more excited about the victory — Kailei, her dad Bill, Middletown’s longtime varsity football coach, or himself.
“I think maybe Bill a little bit more than me although I was pretty excited,” Hunt said. “I let out a yell you could probably hear outside the gym.”
In addition to qualifying at least one wrestler for the girls’ state championships five years running, Hunt has sent multiple wrestlers on a couple of occasions. He barely missed doing that again when Isabella Quintana-Ocken, a junior, lost an 8-7 double-overtime heartbreaker in the third-place match at 150 pounds.
“To come that close to state and lose by one point in double-overtime … I felt for her,” Hunt said of Quintana-Ocken. “I told her to use it as motivation for next year but this one is going to hurt for a while. She’s bummed out about it now, but she’s going to make it next year. She had one hell of a season.”
Quintana-Ocken, the fifth seed, opened Saturday by pinning Kelseyville’s Christina Navarro in the quarterfinals. She then lost to eventual champion Alyssa Hernandez of James Logan in the semifinals before coming back to beat Erin Gaffney of St. Patrick/St. Vincent 9-5 in the consolation semifinals.
“Her consolation semifinal was a tough match,” Hunt said.
Against Shayla Hill of Casa Grande in the third-place match, the two wrestlers battled to a 7-7 tie in regulation and went scoreless in the first 30-second overtime. In the second 30-second overtime, which is sudden-death (the first wrestler who scores wins), Hill scored a few seconds into the period.
Medal winners
While only the top three in each weight class advance to the state tournament in Visalia, the top eight at sections receive medals and seven Lake County girls achieved that goal.
Joining Wilson, Foltmer and Quintana-Ocken as medal winners were Kelseyville’s Navarro, who ended up sixth at 150 pounds; Upper Lake freshman Daniela Estrada, sixth at 137 pounds; Clear Lake junior Emily Psalmonds, seventh at 106 pounds; and Lower Lake sophomore Krystal Lockwood, seventh at 101 pounds.
Psalmonds opened Saturday in the quarterfinals against Joy Pihana of Casa Grande. The two battled to a 9-9 tie thriller in regulation and Pihana went on to win 10-9 when Psalmonds was penalized a point for stalling in the overtime period. She ended the tournament with a 3-2 record.
Lockwood won two straight consolation matches Saturday before losing in the consolation quarterfinals. She came back to win by 6-5 decision in the seventh-place match and finished 4-2.
“She was down 5-1 in the match,” Lower Lake coach Ed Fuchs said. “She scored an escape point, a takedown and a two-point nearfall before time ran out.”
Navarro won two straight matches on Saturday in the consolation bracket to reach the medal round.
Several other county wrestlers came within a win of earning a medal, including Lower Lake’s Rachele Wagner at 106 pounds, Upper Lake’s Angel Stith at 101 pounds, and Upper Lake’s Chelsie Valdez at 126 pounds.
Lower Lake’s Wagner competed despite sustaining a knee injury during a Thursday team practice. She finished 1-2 in the tournament.
“She was in high spirits and just happy she was able to wrestle with a bad knee,” Fuchs said. “She did a nice job adapting her wrestling to the injury. I’m proud of her.”
In team scoring, James Logan High School won the section title with 190.5 points and tournament host Ukiah came in second with 175, just a half-point ahead of Albany High School (174.5) in third place. Upper Lake finished 14th out of 43 teams with 50 points. Middletown (41) was 16th, Lower Lake (17) tied for 29th, Clear Lake (11) tied for 32nd and Kelseyville (9) finished 36th.
The best Coastal Mountain Conference finish was 12th by Willits (52).
