After a frenetic finish to the regular season, the postseason has arrived for El Dorado’s wrestling teams.
The girls take center stage today with the 5A South Girls Regional Meet, which is being hosted at Hot Springs Lakeside.
Weigh-in is at 9 a.m. with wrestling to start at 10 a.m.
Four of El Dorado’s five participants are seeded going into the event.
Sharnesia Tate is the No. 1 seed in the 235-pound weight class. She will wrestle against Jacksonville’s Abigail Woodall in her first match.
Two wrestlers have No. 2 seeds.
Maddie Aguiluz is seeded second in the 100-pound weight class and has a bye to the semifinals.
She faces the winner between Texarkana’s Courtney Neal and Bauxite’s Chloe Brown. Sylvan Hills’ Emele Siegfried is the top seed.
Katelyn Hayden is the No. 2 seed in the 120-pound division.
She faces Hot Springs Lakeside’s Sarahi Gaytan in her first match. Sylvan Hills’ Ashlynn Stone is the top seed.
Destinee Smith checks in as the No. 3 seed in the 130-pound division. She received a bye and faces the winner between Hot Springs Lakeside’s Gabby Gilbert and Arkadelphia’s De’anna Buckley.
Jaimaya White in unseeded in the 155-pound weight class and faces Bauxite’s Rachel Barnett, the No. 4 seed, in her first match.
El Dorado coach Alex Townsend believes all five have a chance to qualify for the state meet.
“I expect all four of those (seeded) girls to place and make the state tournament,” Townsend said. “I think our fifth girl, Jaimaya, has got a great shot too. She’s unseeded, but if she wins a match or two, she’ll be in the state tournament too.”
The Lady Wildcats enter the regional having wrestled last week at Ashdown, but otherwise have been idle after having to compete in four meets over five days that needed to be rescheduled due to last month’s winter storm.
Although coaches would be concerned about the time off, Townsend said the break has allowed both the boys and girls teams to catch their breath.
“I think in this case it’s fine,” Townsend said. “I really didn’t want to have anything this week because I didn’t want to risk somebody getting injured or tweaking something. I’m not really concerned about the break.”
Townsend said practices have been focused on conditioning along with technique.
“The first couple of days, we’ve been very high on cardio volume. We’ve been really working the guys and girls,” Townsend said. “Honestly since we’ve had that week off — and it’s not just been us — we’ve been struggling fitness-wise. That’s really been the emphasis the last 10 days has been trying to get back into shape. Heading into Saturday, we started tapering off on that a little bit and focused more on technique stuff.”
Townsend said he believes the Lady Wildcats are ready.
“It’s coming down to the most important event of the year,” Townsend said. “They’re focused. They’re trying to bust their tails this week and being as prepared as possible to go into it. They’re excited about it. They know the urgency and the importance of this week.”
This will be the first postseason meet for Townsend, and he is eager to see all of the hard work put in bear fruit.
“See all of the hard work we’ve put in this year and get to see our girls go out and shine and show what they’re capable of doing,” Townsend said.