El Dorado ready for regional meet
The postseason has arrived for El Dorado’s wrestling teams.
Today, the girls head to Acorn for the 5A South Regional Meet with the event set to start at 10 a.m.
And while the regional meet in most circumstances is do-or-die, EHS coach Wes Ables said the regional will be mostly for seeding for the state tournament.
“It’s a single elimination tournament and the way it looks right now, all four of our girls will qualify for state because there’s not more than four girls in any of the weight classes in our region,” Ables said. “It will be about figuring out the seeds and getting all of that determined.”
Finding matches for the girls has been a difficult challenge, but that will change with the regional.
“A lot of our girls have had to wrestle boys because there’s no girls in their classes, so we’ve had to deal with that,” Ables said. “Maddie (Aguiluz), against Lakeside and Lake Hamilton, she had to go against boys.
“It was the same thing with Sharnesia Tate. She hasn’t had to go against a girl in conference. She’s had to go against boys in exhibition or JV matches. It’s kind of the way our region is set up.
“Now the other region that we’ll be competing against at state, I think they have twice the number of girls that our region has, so the competition will be stiff at state when we match up with that other region.
“Maddie will have two or three girls in her weight class, Amy Jacobs in the 110-class will compete against the same two or three girls. Katelyn Hayden in 125 will have two or three girls and Tate in 235 will have only other girl besides herself, so they’ll be competing for the one and two seed.”
And while today may not have the pressure normally associated with a regional, seeding for the state tournament will be very important.
“I’m excited for our girls,” Ables said. “It’s time to put up or shut up basically. There’s not quite as much pressure on the girls because they all do know that they’re going to make the state tournament, but knowing that the other region is really, really tough, so you don’t want to be the four seed out of our region and be matched up with the one seed from the other region because that would be a really tough match.
“The boys on the other hand are going to have a lot of competition in the region. They’re going to have to work to be able to get into those top four seeds to even qualify for the state tournament. The boys need to have two really good weeks of practice for their region.”