Lady Lions win state wrestling title in first year
SEARCY — Maty Lincoln has been with the Searcy wrestling team for three years, but this season was the first time she was able to officially compete on the girls team.
“It meant a lot to me to see how this girls team grew and being able to teach them and be their captain, seeing them all the way through to being a state champion as we had hoped,” Lincoln said.
Lincoln and the rest of the Searcy High School girls wrestling team won the program’s first state championship Feb. 20 at the Arkansas High School wrestling championships at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Jack Stephens Center.
“Our goal was to win state as a team,” Lincoln said. “Since it was a new program, almost all of our girls had to learn everything new.
“It was rough because we didn’t have enough people to teach them all. We all had to move down a weight class to fill the holes in our lineup, so that was a little rough on some of us.”
“It is absolutely unbelievable,” head coach Jerry Evans said. “It is one of those things they
can look back on for the rest of their lives.
“They were the first. Everything that happens after this happened because of them.”
A year ago, there were only three girls on the wrestling team, including Lincoln. The other two were sophomores Mykenize Clark and Lily Dias.
“I wanted to try something new and be a part of a team that was much smaller than a football team,” Clark said. “I wanted to try something new and see it lead to new opportunities.”
Clark played defensive end at the junior high as a freshman. She said the transition from football to wrestling was a lot easier because her teammates were a lot more accepting.
“They didn’t really question it,” Clark said. “They were just all nice and helpful, and it made it a lot easier coming from people you knew to people you didn’t know.”
Lincoln had a similar experience. She joined the wrestling team when she was a sophomore after her best friend, who was the only girl on the team, asked her to join.
“I joined and fell in love with the sport, and I made a lot of great friends [with some of the guys],” Lincoln said. “They became my main friends at school.”
Searcy finished this season with a 16-0 record in duals and won a conference championship as well.
At the state tournament, the Lady Lions had nine state placers, including state champions Lincoln and Trinity Danberry; and Harley Seymore, runner-up.
“It means a lot to make history, coming from not playing all that much in football, to a sport where you can not only focus on yourself but your teammates as well,” Clark said.
“I am just so proud of how far we have come. Last year, the girls team was just an idea, but we gathered the girls we needed to make a roster and put in a lot of work.
“To see that hard work pay off, it amazes me.”
Clark finished third in the state tournament with all-state honors.
“She is a very athletic girl,” Evans said. “She needed an opportunity to be in a sport and compete against someone her own size, and as soon as she came into the room, she started learning.”
Lincoln is the first girl from Searcy to sign a scholarship to wrestle in college, planning to join Lyon College in Batesville in the fall.
“I’m excited to get to continue my wrestling career, and I hope to do well at Lyon,” she said. “I hope I am able to make Coach proud of me and make myself proud.”
She said she did receive offers from a few other colleges, but she said she really enjoyed the Lyon wrestling group. She attended a camp there last summer and met some of the girls.
“This season was going to be an important season for her, and it was,” Evans said. “She was exceptional. She went undefeated this season.
“She’s just that good of an athlete. She was an exceptional pole vaulter in junior high, and she is super athletic and very smart. She is the kind of kid that everybody wants to coach.”
As a sophomore, Lincoln wrestled on the varsity boys team, finishing with a 17-4 record during the regular season. She was beat out by an eventual state runner-up.
Evans said Lily Davis joined the wrestling team last year after “needing somewhere to go to show how good of an athlete she is.”
“Watching her in PE, she had a lot of gifts that she wasn’t using,” Evans said. “She is a quick learner, and she learned the skills she could use as an individual to be an elite wrestler this year.”
Evans said having those three girls on the roster last year was invaluable.
“They were able to learn from a great group of champions and knew what expectations were coming on day 1 and led the new team of girls,” Evans said. “Those three girls were instrumental in recruiting other girls because they knew we needed to go out and find weight classes that would fit in with our program.”
He said they were able to help grow the program and be leaders on the team.
“Some of our girls joined because they saw the success we had with the boys program,” Evans said. “They wanted to have an opportunity to be on a successful program and compete against people their own size. … Wrestling, in itself, is a place for everyone to have a spot. It was a big draw, and we have seen that across the nation.”
He said some of the biggest struggles with a first-year program were having to teach the basics and start at ground zero with most of the girls — “like how to put on their shoes, how to stand and where on the mat they are supposed to be,” Evans said. “They had no knowledge of wrestling — even the most basic of skills.”
But, he said, the girls listened and paid attention and tried to do everything exactly the way he said.
“They all had so many questions that made me think about what I was saying and what I was going to show before I showed it to them,” Evans said.
Evans, who is in his 10th year as head coach at Searcy, also received Coach of the Year honors.
“Out of everyone, Coach is my biggest role model, and he has pushed me because he knows what I am capable of,” Lincoln said. “He expects great things from me, and I try to live up to his expectations.
“But no matter how I do, he will always be proud of me.”
Evans said he has already had several girls come up to him and ask when tryouts are for next season.
“Everybody wants to be a part of something special,” Evans said. “I think we will be better next year than we were this year.”