It’s been a historic season for girls’ wrestling season throughout the Moore League. With fierce competition within league play, the Moore League had a solid performance at last weekend’s CIF Southern Section Individuals with three grapplers coming away with CIF titles.
Long Beach Poly’s Dalila Preciado followed up her individual and team league title with her first individual CIF title as she came from behind to defeat Hemet’s Charlotte Mendoza Gurrola with a 10-9 decision.
“I’m so happy,” Preciado said. “I worked so hard for this so it was nice.”
After cruising through her first four matches, Preciado found herself in a difficult match as she was trailing early on.
“There was a point where she threw me,” Preciado said. “I got mad, and told myself I’m not going to lose, not like this.”
Preciado was able to mount the comeback to win the title and she gave gratitude to her family’s wrestling history.
“Everyone in my family wrestles,” Preciado said. “So to win this was nice.”
While Preciado was able to represent for Long Beach Poly, Esper Sanchez and Ashley Wafer both took home titles for Lakewood.
As the 7th-ranked wrestler in her bracket, Sanchez knew she had a tough road ahead of her.
“Honestly, I still can’t believe that I was able to get there,” Sanchez said. “Going in I saw the bracket and it was going against 3rd, 2nd, and 1st seeded as a 7th seed. I was worried and just didn’t have the self confidence. It feels good knowing that I actually made something of my senior year.”
With a full day of wrestling and stiff competition, Sanchez cruised to the 190 title – winning all her matches by pin. However, with the pins – Sanchez was still nervous after each match.
“If I’m being completely honest, I tend to get in my head a lot before matches, especially if I’m going against someone well known in the girls wrestling community,” Sanchez said.
Along with Sanchez, Ashley Wafer proved why she was the top-ranked grappler in her bracket as she dominated after all her matches before defeating Santa Fe’s Jaeleen McLellan by pin.
“Becoming CIF champion after being the runner up last year was extremely rewarding, it feels like all me hard work is paying off,” Wafer said. “This year my motivation was to be better than last year and to be somebody the underclassman could look up to.”
The trio will now look to continue their run as they head to Masters this weekend.
