Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
MOUNTAIN HOME puts last year’s lessons to good use.
Lady Bombers put last year’s lessons to good use
While Mountain Home finished second at the inaugural girls state wrestling tournament a year ago, wrestling wasn’t even in the plans for then-freshman Kylee Sabella.
Sabella played volleyball as a freshman and decided to give wrestling a shot as a sophomore only because one of her friends didn’t want to come out for the team alone.
You wouldn’t have known about her lack of experience while watching Sabella on Wednesday as she was one of three Lady Bombers to claim an individual state title and help Mountain Home cruise to the 2021 team championship. The Lady Bombers amassed 173 points, topping 2020 champs Searcy, who finished second with 129. Fayetteville tallied 122 points at the Jack Stephens Center in Little Rock.
Mountain Home came into this year with a simple message — “We over me” — after leaving Little Rock with a bitter taste in its mouth last year. The buy-in was evident.
Sophomore Amelia Frounfelder (185 pounds) and junior Cayden Jones (235 pounds) joined Sabella (132 pounds) as individual state champions, making the Lady Bombers the only team to capture titles in multiple weight classes.
Mountain Home had two other wrestlers — 116-pounder Amelia Adams and 150-pounder Victoria Bevel — reach the championship match of their respective classifications, and another reached the semifinals.
“It speaks to the quality of kids we have,” Mountain Home Coach David Martin said. “A lot of the girls’ teams have smaller rosters and we have 17 girls, so we’re able to have good competition. Especially after [states] got pushed back two weeks, we were able to get good competition every day in practice.”
Sabella’s win was perhaps the most surprising. Although she’d racked up an 18-2 record entering Wednesday’s competition, Sabella found herself against unbeaten and top-seeded MyKenzie Clark from Searcy in the championship bout.
But Sabella took it to Clark, going up 5-0 in the first period en route to a 12-4 decision.
“After the second tournament [of the season], I thought I had a chance to do something,” Sabella said. “I didn’t think I would win. I didn’t expect to win at all, but I thought I’d be on the podium.”
Frounfelder was even more dominant. A year after coming in third, the sophomore needed less than a half-minute to pin Rogers’ Adeliz Meza.
Jones, who would go on to win her own individual title minutes later, had a feeling it was coming for Frounfelder.
“It surprises me that she can’t see how amazing she is,” Jones said of her teammate. “The older she gets, the more confidence she gains, and I’m really glad that I get to see that for one more year.”
Mountain Home’s gain was Searcy’s loss as the Lady Lions failed to defend their 2020 title.
Coach Jerry Evans was pleased with his team, yet also disappointed in the day’s results. The Lady Lions had just one wrestler, Clark, reach a championship match and dropped all five of their third-place bouts.
“I knew it was going to be a lot harder this year,” Evans said. “We battled some injuries this year. It was just a strange season overall. We didn’t get in the room until fall came around, so we knew there were a lot of obstacles.
“But they came out, they battled hard all tournament, and I think we gave [Mountain Home] a good run but we came up short this time.”
Searcy knew it would have a target on its back with seven seeded wrestlers in the 10 weight classes. The Lady Lions also knew the Lady Bombers would want their revenge from 12 months ago.
“You can see how much work they’ve put in,” Evans said of Mountain Home. “Not only technique but work in the weight room, work in conditioning. They knew what they had to do and who they had to beat …and they’ve earned a state championship.”
As Mountain Home celebrated, standing all together atop the podium, the Lady Bombers did their best to bottle that moment. With three champions set to return next year — as well as a squad that Martin expects to grow to 2025 — it’s hard to imagine anyone but Mountain Home as the favorites at the 2022 state tournament.
“We really used what we did last year as momentum,” Jones said. “That was our goal for 2021: first at state, first at conference, just first. And I honestly think next year, it’s going to be even better because we know we can do it now. We know it for sure, and we’re going to crave that feeling again.”