Paxton Ritchey-CSC Sports Information
DENTON, Texas – Four Chadron State women’s wrestlers punched their ticket to the national tournament while the Eagles finished in fifth place as a team out of 11 competing programs at the NCWWC Region VIII Championships in Denton, Texas, hosted by Texas Woman’s University.
The regional tournament featured brackets at 10 weight classes, with the top four finishers from each weight qualifying for nationals on March 7-8 in Coralville, Iowa.
Esther Peters led the way for Chadron State with a second-place finish at 207 pounds. Also qualifying for nationals were third-place finishers Brianna Vollendroff at 103 pounds and Rylee Balcazar at 110 pounds, and fourth-place finisher Ella Shevlin at 180 pounds.
It is the first-ever national qualification for all four CSC wrestlers, three of which (Peters, Balcazar and Shevlin) are freshmen. Peters, Vollendroff and Shevlin all equaled their finishes from the RMAC championships while Balcazar qualified for nationals by outperforming her fifth-place conference tournament placing.
Two Eagles – 2024 national qualifier Mana Chanthasone at 103 and Sicily Frates at 180 – came agonizingly close to qualifying but finished fifth in the bracket to miss out by one place.
Esther Peters continued her breakout freshman season with a 3-1 day, earning 10-0 tech falls in each of the first two rounds. As luck (and the bracket) would have it, Peters’s semifinal and final were both rematches of the RMAC tourney.
The McKinney, Texas freshman earned a pin at 6:00 over CMU’s Isabeau Shalack in the semi, Peters’s third win this season over the former All-American. That earned Peters another crack at Simon Fraser’s Julia Richey, who had pinned Peters in the RMAC Championship final. The bout went the distance this time, but Richey prevailed in a 5-2 decision to claim the regional championship.
Vollendroff and Balcazar each went 3-1 on the day while losing only to the eventual regional champion. At 103 pounds, Vollendroff tangled with Colorado Mesa wrestlers in three of her four matches, beating Maddison Heinzer twice while losing to eventual champ Jennesis Martinez. Heinzer beat Mana Chanthasone in a crucial consolation semi to take fourth and push Chanthasone down to fifth.
Balcazar earned two of her three wins on the day by fall. She lost in the semifinals to RMAC Wrestler of the Year and eventual champ Austria Holland of Adams State, but rebounded to pin Pacific University’s Zoe Vickers and defeat Fort Hays State’s Josiah Ortiz 7-6 to take third place.
Chadron State was at the center of the action at 180 pounds. Sicily Frates won her first two matches before losing to Colorado Mesa’s Alison Evans in the semifinal. Ella Shevlin lost in the quarterfinals to Fort Hays State’s Isabella Renfro, but battled back to win two consolation matches, both by pin.
That set up a consolation semifinal between the two Eagles in what was essentially a qualification eliminator. Shevlin prevailed by pinning her teammate 4:31 into the match and advanced to a rematch with Renfro for third place, which the Fort Hays wrestler won again. Frates advanced out of the fifth-place match due to a medical forfeit, but Shevlin’s head-to-head win over Frates gave her fourth place and the final qualification spot.
Frates finished 3-2 on the day while Chanthasone, the other fifth-place finisher, was 2-2. Among non-placers, Regan Rosseter (2-2 at 131) and Karstin Hollen (2-2 at 145) won multiple matches while Estrella Vasquez Gutierrez won once at 207. Shania Wear (117), Trona Bates (124), Maddox Gehlhausen (124), Hattie Baldwin (138), Alissa Dubois (160) and Maria Arellano (160) went 0-2.
In team scoring, Colorado Mesa won the regional title with 192 points, beating out Fort Hays State (167) and Simon Fraser (138.5) on the podium. William Jewell finished fourth with 118.5 points with the Eagles in fifth with 98.5 points. Chadron State finished ahead of (in order) Schreiner, Texas Woman’s, Adams State, Minot State, Pacific and Linfield.