RENO >> Less than two months removed from her third-place finish in the 121-pound division at the CIF State Girls Wrestling Championships, Upper Lake High School junior standout Adriana Lopez added another major accomplishment to her growing list of career achievements on Sunday by winning her division at the 2018 FLO Reno Worlds.
Lopez, wrestling for the Golden State Wrestling Club of Upper Lake, won all three of her matches, including a 9-7 upset of the nation’s No. 10-ranked wrestler, Payton Stroud of Washington, in the 121-pound, 18-and-under championship match.
“CIF State in Cali is tough as nails, but Reno is a national tourney and has some great competition from 38 states,” Golden State Wrestling Club coach Jose Fernandez said. “Her win over Payton Stroud is huge. Adriana was in the same bracket as her in Oklahoma two weeks ago (for the USA Folkstyle Nationals), but Adriana was sick. This just shows us that she is ready to compete at any level against any competitor.”
Stroud rallied from a 4-1 deficit to take a 7-6 lead in the third period against Lopez, who pulled even with an escape point before winning the match with a two-point reversal with only 12 seconds remaining.
Lopez overwhelmed her competition en route to the finals against Stroud. She pinned Trinity Hale in her first-round match before beating Mia Almos by 10-2 major decision in the semifinals.
“It means a lot to me because that girl won my weight class at women’s folkstyle nationals a few weeks ago and that shows I can hang with the best of the best,” Lopez said of her Reno Worlds title.
Having won medals at the CIF State Championships two years in a row, including her third-place medal in late February (after a sixth-place finish in 2017), Lopez said there is no doubt about what her goal is for the upcoming 2018-19 high school season, which gets under way in November.
“I plan on winning state and capturing a national next year,” Lopez said.
While Lopez was scoring a huge victory in Reno, another member of the Golden State Wrestling Club, Alexis Peregrina of Upper Lake, also brought home a huge eagle trophy with a third-place finish in the 85-pound, 9-and-under division.
