PARK CITY – Madyson Gray has a motto.
 
"No mercy. No back-up. Get in there, wrestle your game and wrestle strong."
 
Following that formula, Gray has finished her high school career as one of the most accomplished competitors in the nascent sport of girls wrestling in the state of Kansas. 
 
Her pin of Emporia's Virigina Munoz in the second period of her 138-pound championship match gave Gray her 95th win in as many matches against girls competition over the last three years, with 93 over those victories via pinfall.
 
"It's crazy," Gray said. "I honestly don't know, I have no words. It's amazing, it's surreal. … It's the same as last year, I'm grateful to be here and to do this, especially with this community, all the girls. It's just growing and it's amazing."
 
Gray became one of two wrestlers to win an individual state championship in each of the first three seasons for girls wrestling in Kansas, joining Pratt's Livia Swift. Gray won at 130 in 2020 and 132 in 2021. When accounting for her 132-pound B Division title at the unofficial Kansas girls state tournament in 2019, Gray is one of only two four-time champions in Kansas girls wrestling history along with Onaga's Morgan Mayginnes, who won three unofficial state titles before getting a sanctioned KSHSAA title as a senior.

Gray started wrestling when the only real option was competing on the boys wrestling team, where she also holds a winning record at the high school level.
 
"When I started, I had no idea this is what I'd get myself into," Gray said. "At first, it was just a fun thing to do, make friends, meet new people. I fell in love and it's just something that I've wanted to do."
 
Despite having an undefeated record against girls wrestlers over her high school career, Gray said that she still gets nervous before every match.
 
"There's always jitters," Gray said. "I go into every match knowing, no matter what, anything can happen. So I go out there and wrestle my hardest, no matter who it is."
 
Any uneasiness for Gray heading into the finals dissipated shortly after the match got underway. 
 
"It's just a thing you feel," Gray said. "Once I got in there and I got the first few seconds over, I got my jitters out so I could wrestle my game and I could wrestle what I knew."
 
Darin Gray, her father and coach, said he knew about 15 seconds into the match that she had the advantage.
 
"I've been her dad and her coach for years, so I can tell when Mady's ready to get the win," he said.
 
He added that it was a bittersweet moment for him, watching his daughter's high school career come to an historic end. Now Gray will start a new chapter with college wrestling when she heads to Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa this fall.
 
Her father will make the transition from coaching her from across the mat to cheering her from across the stands.
 
"(My feelings are) mixed," Darin Gray said. "It's a culmination of years of just 100% dedication."
 
Gray will look to build upon the legacy she's already crafted as a Firebird, helping grow the sport
 
"It's kind of cheesy, but I just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me through all my years," Gray said. "Just been there, no matter if they were cheering (from the stands) or if they were by my side. 
 
"I just want to say thank you, I couldn't have done it without them."
   

GREAT BEND'S RIDGEWAY GOES BACK-TO-BACK
 
Nobody in Kansas' brief girls high school wrestling history has won more matches than Breanna Ridgeway.
 
Still, that same old feeling kicked in for the Great Bend senior before her 132-pound final against Dodge City's Hailey Ramos.
 
"I always start a match nervous, but then throughout the match, I know if I score first, it'll all be good in the end," Ridgeway said.
 
Like she's done so many times, Ridgeway got the first takedown, then added a second-period reversal and pinned Ramos at the 3:06 mark to win her second straight state title. Counting her freshman season, before the Kansas State High School Activities Association sanctioned girls wrestling, Ridgeway finished her career with a 124-4 record.
 
"This one's just pretty special being my senior year," Ridgeway said.
 
Ridgeway has gained the respect of coaches and wrestlers across the state as a pioneer of Kansas girls wrestling. Among them is Ramos, who lost for the third time this season to her Western Athletic Conference counterpart, all by pin.
 
"Competing against her has taught me to be tougher," said Ramos, a freshman who finished 32-7 and helped Dodge City win its first girls team title. "I just think it's her attitude. She really does know what she's doing. She's a senior, and she's one of the wrestlers I look up to."
 
Ridgeway finished third in the all-class girls state tournament as a sophomore. Last year, she went 36-0 and won the 6-5A title at 126 pounds. After moving up to 132 for her final high school season, Ridgeway went 37-1 with her lone loss to Mission Valley's Hope Blake, who won her second straight Class 4-1A championship on Thursday.
 
"I kind of grew in the summer and I really couldn't cut back down in the beginning," Ridgeway said. "I had to learn from a new perspective."
 
What she leaves behind, Great Bend coach Nathan Broeckelman said, is a legacy for other teammates to follow.
 
"She's been a pleasure and a joy to coach the last four years," Broeckelman said. "She's set the bar for our program for what our girls want to be."
   

WICHITA NORTH'S GARCIA, BENGI DOUBLE THE FUN
 
The time frame for redemption can vary in length.
 
It can be a year, like it was for Wichita North's Rodah Bengi after a disappointing 2021 state tournament.
 
Or it can take less than two weeks, as Bengi's teammate Larisa Garcia proved Thursday.
 
The junior duo moved on from some tough moments on the mat with high-level championship performances within about 10 minutes of each other. Garcia won her second state title and avenged a regional championship loss to Hays' Sarah Zimmerman, pinning the junior in the closing seconds of their 109-pound final.
 
Bengi followed with a second-period pin of feisty Olathe North freshman Kaylan Hitchcock to win the 115-pound title and punctuate a 40-0 season.
 
"I worked all summer long for this, and I've always pushed to try to get faster and stronger," Bengi said. "Knowing that all that work paid off, it just feels really great."

 
North produced two individual champions for the second straight year. Garcia and former North standout Dialeen French went back-to-back at 101 and 109 pounds last season.
 
Garcia rolled along for much of this season at the higher weight class, but hit a major bump on Feb. 12 at North's home regional, when Zimmerman pinned her 1:04 into the match.
 
"It had been forever since I faced her, like almost a year," Garcia said. "I was ready. I was excited. And then I got caught in a chin whip in the first minute, and it felt like I never got a chance to wrestle, never got a chance to feel her out.
 
"I was nervous today. I didn't want to make that same mistake in front of all these people."
 
North coach Quinton Burgess saw a re-dedicated Garcia in the time leading up to state.
 
"I told her that might have been the best thing that happened to her," he said. "She came off of last year winning it all and probably thinking she was going to have a pretty good shot at it based on who she was already.
 
"I think that kind of opened her eyes up. She never looked better at practice. Just turned it up a whole other level."
 
For Bengi, confidence blossomed over the course of the season. She registered victories over Goddard's Audrie Felkins, who defeated her in the 2021 state semifinals, along with Class 4-1A finalist Jadyn Thompson of Pratt and Lakin's Isabell Ortiz, who won the 4-1A 115-pound title on Thursday.
 
But the ghosts of a fourth-place finish last February at state still lingered.
 
"Last year at state, I got too much into my head," Benji said. "As the day progressed, I just wasn't performing at my best. I didn't want to do that this year. I wanted to keep my head clear."
 
After working her way out of the down position midway through the second period, Bengi finished off Hitchcock at the 3:36 mark.
 
"She kind of had, by her standards, a rough state tournament last year," Burgess said. "I think we knew she was a special talent all along. A lot of things clicked for her this year."
 
 

OLATHE WEST'S RIVERA WINS BATTLE OF UNBEATENS, REMATCH OF LAST YEAR'S FINAL

Olathe West's Makayla Rivera won the 235-pound state title for the second straight year, once again defeating Wichita West sophomore Dru Johnson.
 
"It felt good. Felt really, really good," Rivera said. "I was scared at first, and nervous, but when the time came, it just became natural."
 
Rivera got herself out to a 6-0 lead and held that advantage through the end of the match. Still, Johnson pushed her every second of the final period. Johnson had physical control of her opponent during the entire final minute, but ultimately had to let go at zero with Rivera smiling from her defensive position.
 
"My coach told me before (the match) to wrestle smart, instead of trying to wrestle cocky and wrestle for the pin. That's what I did," Rivera said. "I wrestled smart instead of going for the pin like I usually do, and it helped me get the win in the end."
 
Despite the rematch from last year's state final, Rivera admitted that she did not enter this match expecting a similar performance, from herself or from Johnson.
 
"Last year it was completely different," Rivera said. "We were two wrestlers not really knowing what we were doing. But this year, everything was just straight technique (from Johnson). I was not expecting it one bit, but I powered through it and I figured it out."
 
Rivera said the gap between her semifinals match on Wednesday and her finals match to close out the Class 6-5A state tournament added a little bit of nervous energy for her going up against a competitor that she did not get to face previously during this wrestling season.
 
"It's really nerve racking having to wait and then see your opponent walk back and forth," Rivera said. "But it's kind of nice getting that big gap because you get time to rest, time to think."
 
Rivera, who also took runner-up at 235 as a freshman, said she plans to drop a weight class next year to wrestle at 191, which is the weight she plans to wrestle at in college. She has not decided where she wants to go yet, but she's looking forward to figuring out what she wants to do with her life. That and continuing to wrestle.  

LEAVENWORTH'S JACKSON MAKES MOST OF THIRD CHANCE
 
Hannah Jackson has invested a lot into her wrestling and physique during her high school career.
 
The Leavenworth junior and three-time state finalist finally enjoyed the fruits of that labor with a second-period pin of Olathe Northwest senior Caroline Foeller for the 143-pound title.
 
"The last two years, there were a lot of big ups and then on that final day, it was a big letdown," said Jackson, who lost in the state's all-class finals to Junction City's Elisa Robinson as a freshman and then to Bonner Springs' Olivia Stean in the Class 6-5A championship a year ago. "Today was great, getting it done with everybody cheering for me."
 
Jackson, who finished 31-3, wrestled Robinson at 191 pounds and Stean at 170 in her previous finals appearances. Both times, she lost by pins.
 
With discipline in her diet and workout routine, Jackson became a leaner wrestler whose superior strength was evident throughout the tournament.
 
Jackson emerged from a bracket that included two-time 143-pound state champion AshLynn Goodwin of Goddard, whom she defeated 3-1 in a third overtime period during Wednesday's quarterfinals.
 
"It shows that I can do anything I set my mind to, and that the hard work is paying off," Jackson said.