TACOMA – Two different mindsets, one championship destination.
Aliyha Vargas and Victoria Nicacio approached Mat Classic differently. Yet on Saturday night, both left the Tacoma Dome as state wrestling champions for Washougal.
Despite being the top-ranked wrestler in Class 2A at 145 pounds, Vargas approached each match as if she was the underdog.
The result? Vargas rolled through bracket pin after pin after pin. In fact, the 2 minutes, 55 seconds it took her to pin Squalicum’s Brooke Legoe in the title match was her longest of four in the tournament.
“It’s not about the placing, it’s about the mindset,” Vargas said. “Whether it was easy or hard, I still pushed myself each match.”
Nicacio, on the other hand, could surely have approached her 120-pound title match as the underdog. She faced Ridgefield’s Lillian Hulegaard, who had pinned Nicacio in less than a minute in their two previous matches.
Yet through her trust in her strategy and the work she had put in, Nicacio stepped on the mat with supreme confidence.
“I had already won it my head, then I wrestled like it,” she said.
Indeed, Nicacio jumped to a 6-1 lead in the first period then held on to win 9-3. It capped a stellar tournament for the junior and harkened back to two early-season wins over Hulegaard.
Washougal girls wrestling coach Heather Carver said the five matches between Nicacio and Hulegaard this season have been a case study in strategy and adjustments.
“Lillian, as a true competitor does, said ‘I’m switching up my strategy and I’m going to find a way to win,” Carver said. “What Victoria and I talked about for this match was going back to believing in her gifts and in her plan.”
Nicacio credits many of her gifts to training with her older brothers, Andres and Armando, who both wrestled at Mat Classic for Union.
But little sister is the only one in the family with a state championship. It’s an accomplishment she credits to her faith, her family and her teammates.
“Wrestling, it really is life,” she said. “The way you live is going to reflect on the way you wrestle. If you put in the hard work and you’re well-disciplined, you’re going to have a well-disciplined life. That leads to victory. That leads to what a winner is.”
Nicacio’s win set the tone for Vargas, whose championship match was roughly 30 minutes later.
“It really gave me that motivation,” Vargas said. “Two team captains, we’ve got to get this win.”
And those wins crafted a stellar end to the season for Washougal girls wrestling.
“Two very different wrestlers, two very different stories, but the heart is the same,” Carver said. “I’m totally over the moon for Washougal High School and those special girls.”
Woodland’s McReynolds caps career as champion
Against the top-ranked 115-pounder in Class 2A, Woodland senior Couley McReynolds figured the state championship match would be long and close.
It was over in less than a minute.
McReynolds capped her third Mat Classic with her first state title, pinning Centralia’s Eva Reinitz just 51 seconds into their title match.
After failing to reach the trophy round her first two times, McReynolds finally figured out the puzzle that is winning in front of thousands of spectators.
“Last year I was ranked fourth, but I ended up getting really nervous,” McReynolds said. “The Dome is scary. Me being able to confidently wrestle and believe I could do it is a huge change.”
McReynolds also needed less than a minute to pin her semifinal opponent Lilly Hopkins of Orting. But that came after an improbable 14-13 win in the quarterfinals, where she scored four points in the final 25 seconds to beat Savannah Taylor of Rogers-Spokane.
Now a state champion, Reynolds planned to celebrate with ice cream on the drive home.
“I’m probably going to have the biggest smile on my face that I ever have,” she said.
