SWAT goes 2-1 on opening night

A lot of times, being positioned for success in wrestling is made possible by building a good base against your opponent. In a more figurative sense, the SWAT Valkyries felt they did that as a group last Thursday in their first meet.

The Valkyries hosted Perry, Red Oak and Raccoon River Northwest for a quad. SWAT defeated Red Oak 42-18 and Perry 42-24, but they lost 74-5 to RRW.

“The girls looked good, I thought. Everybody wrestled well. You could see there were some nerves there, but they were working moves, trying things we’ve worked on in practice,” SWAT head coach Tyler South said. “Their conditioning was decent, I thought. For the first time and first matches of the season, I thought they wrestled well.”

The Valkyries collected head-to-head wins in the Red Oak dual from Bailey Lillard (145 pounds), Lilly Barber (155) and Nadia South (110) — all from CAM and all with pins. Wins by forfeit were picked up by Stella Beattie (170) of CAM, Megan Gerlock (190) of CAM and Addi Glade (105) and Destiny Fry (115), both from Nodaway Valley.

“For the team points, a fall is the most you’re going to get. To see them go out and work for that, they’re working hard on pinning combinations and different things, trying to take advantage of what’s there,” South said. “It feels good to know they’re looking for those pins.”

Gerlock won by fall over Perry’s Hanna Sucher with a 24-second pin while Lillard, Barber, Beattie, Glade, Nadia South of CAM and Fry won with forfeits.

RRW racked up nine head-to-head wins in that matchup with Beattie collecting the only victory for SWAT with a 19-3 tech fall.

“Stella likes her takedowns, but she also likes pins. That girl was pretty strong and was a pretty good wrestler,” South said. “Stella was trying to get her broke down and get a pinning combination but we couldn’t quite get it on her. As it got into kind of a dangerous situation she would let her loose and take her down again.”

SWAT finished first in a tournament Saturday at Southwest Valley with 10 wrestlers medaling. Leading the way individually were Nadia South (110), Fry (115), Beattie (170) and Gerlock (190) with championships. Erin South of CAM (135) and Lillard (145) were second while Barber (155) took third.

Jelina Gutierrez was fourth at 125, Glade sixth at 110 and Addy Erlandson sixth at 145. All three of those are from Nodaway Valley.

The Valkyries had this week off from competition for Thanksgiving. They were not participating in a meet at Iowa Central Community College like they originally planned. Instead, their next meet is Tuesday, Dec. 2 at Missouri Valley against the host Lady Reds, ATU (AHSTW/Tri-Center/Underwood) and Oakland Riverside.

“This will be a good week to refresh on some things. We’re going to have the duals and a tournament under our belts,” South said. “Going into Monday we can say these are the things we noticed and be able to focus on those things.”