KatieZinna

Metro Wrestling is a tournament hosted by Bellevue East where both girls and guys from all around the state come together to compete. This year, Metros took place on Jan. 18 with freshmen Emma Zander, Makenzie Martinez, sophomores Keyara Harrell, Amelia Spieker, Fatima Sani Ali, Hanna Loal and juniors Macy Salzbrenner, Cadence Porter, Keely Robbins, all competing in their weight divisions. 

For those who don’t know how Metros works, here’s a quick rundown: The actual event itself can last anywhere from 10-15 hours, with girls constantly switching out and spending only a couple of minutes on the mat at a time. Girls start at the lowest weight class and slowly make their way up to the highest one before moving on to the championship. Those who lose a match still have a chance to earn a consolation place. 

However, due to many injuries throughout their season, four girls were not able to compete in Metros. Still, this did not deter the team from achieving their goal of crushing it on the mat. Porter took second place, with Salzbrenner following in third place and Sani Ali and Loal taking sixth place.

Even with so many hard hits to the team this season, Coach Lauren Barefoot had no doubt that her girls were going to go out and give it their all. Barefoot has stressed a certain mentality this season to help keep the team’s spirits up even when they felt defeated, saying “wins are nice, losses are tough, but as long as you come off the mat with something learned, I think we won the day.”

In order to help themselves prepare for Metros, the wrestling team had five two-hour practices to work on facing off against each other while simultaneously trying to fix past mistakes they had made in other matches. They also use many of their January matches to help them prepare for the big event. 

All in all, with members of the wrestling team placing in second, third, sixth and sixth, they did very well at Metros, but Marian girls can help them do even better by showing up to matches and supporting the Crusaders. Their next few matches are on Feb. 8 at Kearney High School and Feb. 18 and 19 at Century Link Center.