Medberry, Mueller win UIC wrestling titles
Senior Mayleigh Medberry defended her Upper Iowa Conference title at 125 pounds on Jan. 24. (Photos by Audrey Posten)
Mylee Mueller, wrestling at 170 pounds, claimed her first UIC title on Saturday.
By Audrey Posten | Times-Register
Central/Clayton Ridge wrestlers Mayleigh Medberry and Mylee Mueller are Upper Iowa Conference champions. The two led the Warrior contingent that placed five wrestlers overall and finished fifth as a team at the UIC Girls Conference Tournament at North Fayette Valley on Jan. 24.
“We came in today knowing that we had two girls with the number one seed, one girl with the two seed and one with a number three seed, so we expected them to do pretty well,” said coach Abby Heitman. “I asked them to prove why they had the seeds they had, and I think they came here and did just that.”
Medberry, a senior who’s currently ranked fourth in Class 1A in the state, defended her title at 125 pounds. After winning her first two matches by fall over NFV’s Joslyn Kraft and Riceville’s Mally Linkenmeyer, Medberry needed extra time to defeat Charlotte Koether of MFL MarMac 3-0 by sudden victory.
“That tends to be how Mayleigh wrestles a lot of her matches. She likes to give us heart attacks, I think,” Heitman said. “The last time she wrestled [Koether], she was down 7-0 and ended up coming out with a win. So I’m not really surprised by it.”
Mueller, wrestling at 170 pounds, pinned Brooklynn Martins of Postville in her opening match. She secured another fall over South Winneshiek’s Avery Busch to claim her first UIC title.
Maci Keppler was a runner-up for Central/Clayton Ridge at 130 pounds. The senior scored a 17-0 technical fall over Crestwood’s Karlee Henry to advance to the championship bout. There, she was pinned by Sophie Glaser—one of five individual winners for team champ New Hampton-Turkey Valley.
Kendall Wagner continued the string of success for the Warriors with a third place result at 115 pounds. Wagner lost her first match by a narrow 11-10 decision against Alayna Leibold of Janesville, but bounced back with three straight victories. The night was capped off by a pin over Leibold—revenge for the loss earlier in the tournament.
At 135 pounds, Addison Davis lost three matches by fall on Saturday, but wrestled her way to the sixth step on the podium.
The team’s conference success followed up a strong showing at the Cougar Girls Invitational at Sumner-Fredericksburg on Jan. 20. A score of 74 tied Central/Clayton Ridge for sixth among 16 teams.
Keppler had the best result of the night, as the runner-up at 130 pounds. Wagner (115), Medberry (125) and Mueller (155) all placed third in their respective brackets, with Medberry earning her 150th career win in the process. Davis did not place at 135 pounds.
The Warriors will look to carry this momentum into the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union Class 1A - Region 4 state qualifying meet at Denver on Friday, Jan. 30. The top two finishers in each weight class will advance to the state tournament in Coralville next week.
Coach Levi Lauer feels good about the team’s chances.
“As long as we can get some good recovery this weekend and into next week, and as long as we keep building off of what we did today, we should have a couple people getting down to state, hopefully,” he said.
