DES MOINES 

The Golden Hawks are no stranger to having wrestlers qualify for the state tournament and this year was no exception, as last Friday in Des Moines three Mid-Prairie girls qualified for state at super regionals. 

Taking place at HyVee Hall in this state’s capital, the Mid-Prairie girls competed in region four, along with 24 other teams, with tickets to state on the line. To reach state a wrestler must place fourth or higher. 

Senior Ellie Brenneman punched her ticket to state, for the third time in her high school career, by ending regionals with a third-place finish. 

“[Brenneman] wrestled very well at regionals, she was very aggressive on her takedowns and stayed in good position,” Mid-Prairie coach Randy Billups said. “Her greatest strength is that she works hard and is in great shape and is mentally strong.”

Leading up to her final match Brenneman, wrestling at 135 lbs, only lost once to Raccoon River-Northwest’s Ellie Hancock by fall in 3:51, but the match for third place ended up being a rematch between Brenneman and Hancock. 

Getting retribution for her previous loss, Brenneman defeated Hancock by fall in 3:14 to take third place. Overall Brenneman went 5-1, all her victories were fall, at regionals and she will enter the state tournament with a 27-11 record.  

Also placing third to reach state was junior Ashlee Farrier. 

Farrier (135) wrestled in six matches, only losing once. Her lone loss came in the quarterfinals, being defeated by Indianola’s Andrea Taylor decision, 3-2. 

Getting a chance to amend her only loss of the night, Farrier battled Taylor again but this time with third place on the line. Not letting her chance for revenge slip by, Farrier defeated Taylor by fall in 3:16 to place third.

In the five matches Farrier won she won them all by fall. She will enter state with a 26-4 record. This will be the second time she will compete at state.

The third and final Golden Hawk to advance to state was sophomore Ellie Callahan, who placed fourth.

Callahan (170) won her first two matches by fall, in 1:44 and 3:13, but suffered her first set back when she lost her next match by fall in 45 seconds.

She rebounded by winning the consolation semifinal round by fall in 52 seconds, but she lost the third-place match by decision, 7-5.

  In her last contest of regionals, a fourth-place match, Callahan won by no contest over Liana Krell of Valley, West Des Moines.

This will be Callahan’s second trip to state, and she will enter the tournament with a record of 22-14.

“[Farrier and Callahan] both work extremely hard in practice which carries over into their competition,” coach Billups. “We work on wrestling for six minutes the entire match and try to always score points and they do well at that.”

As a team Mid-Prairie had 12 wrestlers compete at regionals and they ended the night with 110 team points to place seventh in the team standings.

“As far as the team I felt like we all wrestled well at regionals. We had a couple of girls who were close to qualifying but came up a little short,” coach Billups said. “We had a very good season and we feel that all of the team had a lot of growth from the beginning to the end.”

Up next for Mid-Prairie will be traveling to the Xtreme Arena in Coralville to compete in the IGHSAU state tournament taking place from Feb. 1-2.