OVERLAND PARK — The Garden City girls wrestling team took a move from the Garden State and used it to produce a winning formula at this year’s 6A state tournament at AdventHealth Sports Park at Bluhawk in Overland Park.

The Buffaloes scored 219.5 points to clinch this year’s state championship, the first for the program after getting very close multiple times during the first five years of girls wrestling as an officially sanctioned sport for the KSHSAA.

Garden City head coach Paul Lappin, a first-year head coach who served as an assistant under the team’s previous head coach Carlos Prieto, said it was great to see his squad finish strong after racing out to a 20-plus point advantage early on the first day of state.

“They got after it,” Lappin said. “We got hot for a while and won a lot of big matches when we needed to. We just did what we do, so it’s a great feeling. All the kids' hard work paying off.”

Lappin, a first-year head coach who served as an assistant under the team’s previous head coach Carlos Prieto, was able to see this team push through for the state title after two straight years of finishing as the runner-ups.

Garden City took state runner-up each of the two previous years behind Washburn Rural. The Buffaloes joined Dodge City as the only other team to win a state title as the Junior Blues won the four others.

Dodge City finished as state runner-up with 190 points while Washburn Rural took third with 166 points. This marked the lowest finish for the Junior Blues through six seasons of the sport. Washburn Rural finished second during Dodge City’s state title season in 2022.

Garden City positioned itself well at the end of Day 1. The Buffaloes had five wrestlers in the finals to try and match any points gained by Dodge City’s four finalists. But they would not even need to worry about that after their performance of their wrestlers in the consolation rounds.
 

Lappin pointed out how nearly all of his wrestlers sent to the backside of the bracket were able to win at least one match.

“Every point counts,” Lappin said. “We knew it could come down and be that tight.”

But with those performances, the team’s five finalists could avoid extra pressure and instead focus on just their match.

Garden City senior Maya Tarbet and sophomore Crystal Loera won individual state championships as well. 

For Tarbet, she clinched a three-peat with her victory in the 130-pound finals. In the two previous seasons, Tarbet won the 125-pound 6-5A state title.

For this year’s finals match against Wichita Southeast junior Karen Gonzalez, Tarbet spent two scoreless periods waiting patiently for an opening.

Gonzalez, who chose a neutral position heading into the second, clearly wanted to stay on her feet as much as she could. Tarbet looked to break the 0-0 tie by choosing bottom going into the third.

Gonzalez returned to her feet again, looking for a mat return to finally score a takedown. But Tarbet was more than ready. As Gonzalez went for a gutwrench throw, only for Tarbet to quickly wrap her arms around Gonzalez’s knee to avoid the takedown. Tarbet circled until she gained top position and reversal points.
 

Tarbet worked her way into her favorite move, even though she executed it in a way that illegally wrenched her opponent’s arm behind her back and caused the official to call for a reset.

But on the restart, Tarbet applied the move again. This time she moved away from her opponent’s trapped arm and applied a half nelson using her opponent’s outside arm. Tarbet stacked Gonzalez for the pin and the state championship victory, which was her third straight title.

“It feels like all my work has finally went to something and I finally succeeded,” Tarbet said. “I feel like I had a great weight lifted off my chest. I've been working for this basically all my life. 

“This is all I've ever wanted.”

Tarbet began wrestling when she was seven years old.

“I wrestled with the boys and I always lost,” Tarbet said. “I didn't start succeeding until maybe my eighth-grade year.”

During that last year before high school, Tarbet won a state title at the Kansas Kids Wrestling State Championship tournament. 

But her first high school season, Tarbet took sixth at 120 in 4-1A while wrestling for Ulysses.

“Ever since then, I've just been hungry for titles," she said.

Tarbet got her first state title as a sophomore during her first season at Garden City. Her state matches that year already showed the formula that she’d stick with throughout the next two years.

In her finals match at that 2023 state tournament, Tarbet built up a 4-0 advantage through two periods. After choosing to start the third on bottom, Tarbet had a tough time breaking free from the grasp of Salina Central’s Lydia Dong. When she finally did with about 40 seconds on the clock, Tarbet quickly positioned herself for her favorite move: the Jersey ride.

“I try to work other moves, but that move is always there,” Tarbet said. “Once you get it, it always works.”
 

The “Jersey ride” is the name that her team uses for a technique more commonly referred to as the Blair ride. It’s named after Blair Academy, a national powerhouse in prep wrestling based in Blairstown, New Jersey.

For this move, the wrestler in top position takes control with an inside wrist hold while putting the weight of their chest on their opponent’s back at a perpendicular angle.

The top wrestler can use their free arm to do a number of things, from putting the bottom wrestler into a half nelson or attempting to gain wrist control on their opponent’s other arm.

When the move is locked in properly, the bottom wrestler is left with only a handful of viable options to get themselves free. If that wrestler is not able to break free with hand fighting and getting into a sitting position, they generally attempt to flip forward and hope the top wrestler loses control during the roll.

But as the Garden City girls have proven time and again, that escape attempt is just as likely to leave the top wrestler in control while the bottom wrestler is stacked on their upper back and has no power or leverage from their legs, if their feet are even touching the ground at all.

And even if they don’t attempt to roll, Tarbet and her teammates have shown an ever-increasing ability to force their downed opponent to roll over into position for a stack pin.

But Tarbet was not nearly as lethal with this technique back when she first reached the top of the state medal stand.

Although the Jersey ride helped her increase her lead late in her first finals match, Tarbet never quite got Dong stacked for a pin before time ran out in a 7-0 decision victory.

Tarbet also didn’t stick the move during her second finals match last year against Piper’s Maia Dolinar, who won the 135-pound 5A state title this year. But Tarbet did have a similar finish against Dolinar as she did in both of her other finals matches.

Just like this year’s finals, that match was also scoreless heading into the third. Tarbet also chose bottom to start that period. She struggled a little less than she did with Dong and little more than she did with Gonzalez to get free there. Tarbet still turned a reversal into a chance to score a pin in the waning seconds of the match.

Tarbet used the Jersey ride to nearly stick the pin, but Dolinar rolled out of it before Tarbet could get her leg wrapped around Dolinar’s arm. There was not enough time to try it again, leaving Tarbet to settle for a 4-0 decision victory.
 

Her pin over Gonzalez in this year’s finals marked the first time Tarbet got the Jersey ride to end a finals match early.

But the biggest breakthrough made using the move was actually with how the rest of the team decided to follow Tarbet’s lead, turning the Jersey ride into the signature move for Garden City’s state championship run.

In the semifinals, Garden City sent wrestlers into the finals for five consecutive weight classes. Every single one of them locked up their matches by utilizing the Jersey ride.

Sophomore Marina Loera faced a 14-0 deficit against reigning 115-pound champ Stella Segura of Shawnee Mission South in their semifinals match. But Loera started on top in the third and worked her way into position for the team’s signature move.

“I just basically did my money move, a Jersey ride, chopped it and just shelved it,” Loera said. “It was over before I knew it.”

Sophomore Julissa Rodriguez spent most of her semifinals match against Gardner Edgerton’s Naomi Mayfield trying to execute the Jersey ride. But after she couldn’t quite stick it through two nearfalls, her coaches instructed to abandon it. Rodriguez rose to her feet and immediately secured another takedown to clinch the 17-1 tech fall.

Rodriguez reached the finals this year after being unable to wrestle at all last season. During the summer before her sophomore year, Rodriguez suffered injuries in an ATV accident, forced to miss her sophomore wrestling season while she spent time recovering.

Crystal Loera tried a few different strategies in her semifinal against Gardner Edgerton’s Josie Clouse, but Clouse tried to turn the tables with a slight variation of the move. Clouse used her free arm to reach underneath her opponent, grab their outside arm and pull it back across their body for her to use as leverage to flip her opponent into a stack position.

After she was twice able to avoid Clouse locking it in, or even scoring points, Loera earned an escape midway through the second period. Clouse attempted a double-leg takedown, only for Loera to block it and score her own takedown.

It took her a couple tries, but Loera utilized her top position to start the third period to finally stick the Jersey ride for the pin.

Tarbet went straight for the Jersey ride to start her semifinals match against Gardner Edgerton’s Saoirse McCall, earning the pin with just under 40 seconds left in the first period. 

While Tarbet was on her way to winning a third straight state championship by leaning on the Jersey ride, Loera was heading for her first.
 

Although her teammates finished the previous day talking about how the team’s five straight wins in the semifinals helped feed their victory, Loera did not want to take the chance of letting those other matches sway her one way or the other heading into her finals match.

“I learned that I have to kind of stay away from the crowd and stay away from all the hype before the matches,” Loera said. “My sister wrestled. If I would've watched that, I probably would've wrestled not as good.”

Loera decided she needed to stay focused on her own preparation, staying focused on what she needed to do in her match.

Seeing as the three teammates who went on before her, including her sister Marina, ended up losing their finals, it seems like Loera might have made the right decision to not look to those matches for an emotional boost going into her match.

Loera faced Megan Vasquez of Olathe Northwest in the finals. This was a rematch from the blood round of last year’s state tournament.

Loera pinned Vasquez in their previous medals round bout, although the Jersey ride was nowhere to be found. Instead she caught Vasquez with a front headlock, which she turned into a cow catcher to get the pin. Loera would go on to take third at 115.

This time around, Loera started the second period with a reversal which she quickly turned into a Jersey ride. Vasquez nearly escaped by bridging with her legs and rolling onto Loera’s back. But Loera refused to let go, pulling Vasquez back toward a stack pin.

Vasquez had gained enough separation to roll back to a sit-out stance. But a determined Loera repositioned herself for a half nelson, which she used to roll Vasquez on her upper back again. This time, Vasquez had nowhere to go as Loera kept Vasquez’s opposite arm hooked with a leg to secure the stacked pin.

Marez, Marina Loera, and Rodriguez were not able to stick the Jersey ride in the finals as all three ended up finishing as state runner-up in their weight classes.

But Nicole Abrego and Kaira Acosta used the move on the way to taking third at 100 and 105 respectively, giving Garden City top three finishes for each of the seven smallest weight classes. Alyxia Serrano taking fifth at 135 and Margarita Guzman taking fourth at 140 pushed that number to nine weight classes reaching the medal stand. 

Freshman Aaliyah Garza, sophomore Olivia Dunlap and freshman Mary Condo each reached the blood run before suffering their second loss to end their state outings. Garza and Condo picked up 7 points each in the team race while Dunlap added another 2 points. 

Sophomore Maribel Hernandez rounded out the team’s state qualifiers, but was not able to pick up a win at state.

Garden City finished with the most pins by a team in this year's 6A girls state tournament at 30. Washburn Rural finished one back at 29, while Dodge City was a distant third with 24 pins.

In the first state tournament since girls wrestling doubled from two to four classifications, Garden City took the most advantage of a much higher point total for the top teams this year.

Previously, the most points by the state champion in 6-5A was 153 by Washburn Rural in 2023. The next most was 118.5 by Dodge City in 2022, which was the only other time the Junior Blues did not hoist the state trophy since KSHSAA’s first girls wrestling state tournament in 2020.

This year, Shawnee Mission South walked away without a team trophy after finishing fourth with 150 points. Olathe North landed in fifth with 120.5 points.
 

GARDEN CITY’S PACHECO, HOLGUIN WIN INDIVIDUAL STATE TITLES TO KEY STATE RUNNER-UP PERFORMANCE FOR BOYS

Garden City had hoped to pair its girls title with a boys title as well, but the Buffaloes ended up finishing just short of accomplishing that goal.

Manhattan ended up winning the boys team race for the 6A state title with 189 points. Garden City settled for state runner-up with 176 points, which also narrowly held off two teams as Washburn Rural took third with 169.5 points, one ahead of Maize at 168.5.

“We didn't have a great day today,” Lappin said. “That's where it kind of stings. We didn't perform at our best, but again, that's life. The sun will come up tomorrow and heck, our kids, we still took second. 

“Our kids gave it everything they had and I'm very, very proud of them.”

Seniors Brayden Pacheco and David Holguin led the way for the Buffaloes as they both won individual state championships.

After a couple years of heartbreaks in the finals, Pacheco finally broke through to win a state championship this year. Pacheco earned a 10-1 major decision over Maize’s Zachary Siatka in the 113-pound finals.

“It hasn't really set in yet,” Pacheco said. “But I know waking up in a few days, it'll finally settle in.”

His championship bout ended up being a rematch from the West regional finals, where Pacheco won by 15-5 major decision over Siatka.

Although this ended up being a similar result, Pacheco said this match looked much different from the first time around. That’s because Pacheco never planned to duplicate his original strategy as he fully expected Siatka to have his own new game plan focused on limiting what was effective for Pacheco at regionals.
 

“I knew he was going to be watching for the fireman’s carry after wrestling in the regionals finals,” Pacheco said. “I knew he was gonna be prepared for that, so we've been working on it all week. Trying new shots, just knowing that he was gonna be prepared for it.”

Pacheco also had enough scouting done on Siatka to know that this would be another bout between two scramblers.

“So I had to stay in position for the full match and not give him any openings,” Pacheco said.

This was Pacheco’s third straight finals appearance. He finished as the 6A state runner-up at 106 during his sophomore and junior campaigns.

Pacheco said those second-place finishes definitely fueled his run to a state title this season.

“I thought about all the feelings last year and things my coaches would say, and I just didn't want to hear those same things again for a third year in a row,” Pacheco said. 
 

Holguin joined him in bringing home a state championship one year after an injury took away his chance to compete at state altogether.

“It hasn't really set in yet, but it feels really good,” Holguin said, adding that achieving this with Pacheco and the success of his other teammates increased his enjoyment of this moment.

Holguin suffered a season-ending torn meniscus at regionals last year before returning this season to win a regional title. He’d pick up three more wins, including a thrilling ultimate tiebreaker finish in the semifinals, to reach the 215-pound final against Manhattan’s Landon Dobson.

This was also a rematch of the regional final. It also ended up playing out differently than Holguin’s 17-8 major decision in that one.

“I knew that going into it he was going to be a little more hesitant with his shots,” Holguin said. “We wrestled at regionals and I feel like he used a lot of his gas tank earlier in the match.”

After a scoreless opening two periods, Holguin scored an escape to start the third and subsequently held on for the 1-0 decision over Dobson.

“The basics won David that match,” Lappin said. “There's not a lot of better people than David and his brother Dio out there. They are solid people and the way his season ended last year where he tore his meniscus and didn't qualify for state, it was so good to see him get that redemption today.”

To get there though, Holguin had to squeeze out an even closer semifinals match against the reigning champ, Christopher Wash Jr. of Mill Valley. 

Holguin opened the second period of that match with an escape, but Wash returned the favor with his own escape to start the third. 

It took until late in the second overtime period for Holguin to score another point with an escape. Again, Wash tied it up with his own escape in the third overtime.

In the ultimate tiebreaker, Holguin started on bottom and made one more escape to win 3-2. 
 

Pace Plankenhorn and Matthew Long finished as the state runner-ups in the 106 and 120 weight classes respectively.

Plankenhorn fell behind 5-1 through two periods of his finals match with Maize’s Cooper Smith. Although a reversal earned midway through the third put him within a takedown of taking the lead, Plankenhorn’s all-out effort in the closing seconds yielded only a penalty point, while giving up an escape point, on the way to a 6-4 decision in Smith’s favor.

Long trailed 1-0 to start the third period of his finals match with Maize’s Antonio Guebara. Although Long scored an escape to even up the score, Guebara responded quickly with a takedown and nearfall to earn a 8-5 decision over Long.

Junior Zachary Long, sophomore Romeo Garcia and senior Brayden Hill reached the medal stand with their performances. Hill had the best of the group with his third-place finish at 285. Long took fourth at 126 and Garcia took fifth at 138.

Senior Logan Avalon (144) and Senior Saben Herrera (150) reached the blood round before being eliminated from competition.

Junior Isaiah Ayala at 132, senior Sergio Sanchez at 157, freshman James Hill at 165 and senior Dio Holguin at 190 rounded out the team’s state qualifiers. Each one picked up points for the team.