Women wrestlers finish strong at first meet

Chadron State women’s wrestling team started its program with five wrestlers competing at the Colorado Mesa Open, Saturday. One wrestler finished with a bronze medal and two wrestlers were one round away from placing.

“This was better than the start I expected,” Alijah Jeffery, head women’s wrestling coach, said. “Usually, you see those pre-mat jitters, especially that first tournament, going out there and kind of freezing up. There was none of that. Everyone went out there, wrestled hard right away and was full of confidence.”

Kamila Montenegro, junior of Las Vegas, won five of her six matches to finish third in the 170-pound bracket. She pinned her first opponent then took her only loss of the day by decision, 8-4. Montenegro returned to the mat to pin her remaining opponents in a range of times. For her last match, she faced her first opponent again, Courtney Cardoza, freshman of Ottawa University Arizona, and pinned her just shy of three minutes.

“Not only did she (Montenegro) have a great performance, I know in the past she had struggled with getting out of position or being a little bit more reckless in a match,” Jeffery said. “What I saw from her is she’s very aware of her style and what was going to work for her. Six matches in a day is a lot, and she kept it together and wrestled strong.”

Taylor Lindstrom, freshman of Rapid City, South Dakota, made it to the third round of the 101-weight class, finishing one match shy of placing. All of her matches were technical falls with Lindstrom being on both side of the outcome. She lost her first and third matches, 10-0 and 17-6 respectively, but won her second match against teammate Kinsey Smith, junior of Windsor, Colorado, 12-2.

Lindstrom said it’s a really great experience to be a member of the first CSC women’s wrestling team.

“I’m glad we are here to represent Chadron and be the start of a really good program,” she said. “And all the support behind us is amazing, we love the attention this program is bringing to not only our college but Nebraska and other surrounding states and I’m sure there will be women’s wrestling teams all over in the near future.”

Karstin Hollen, freshman of Mesa, Arizona, was also one round away from placing at 143 pounds. Hollen was pinned in her first match in 42 seconds but put up a fight against Kairah Castillo of Black Widow Wrestling Club, finishing the match tied 6-6, but taking the loss due to match criteria.

“I was impressed by everybody,” Jeffery said. “We had talked leading up to this first competition about not being concerned about wins or loses but being concerned about going out there and trying things and trying to score points and everyone on the team did that.

He said that both Lindstrom and Hollen are right there and once they make a few tweaks and get more comfortable with freestyle wrestling and the mat, they’ll be just fine.

The Eagles competes in the Lindenwood Open, Sunday at St. Charles, Missouri.

“Hopefully we can get some more wins and produce some more placers,” Jeffery said. “We’re heading in the right direction so we’re just going to keep working hard.”