Senior Solin Piearcy has just become the national champion for girls wrestling. Piercey traveled to Oklahoma University where she wrestled five girls, beating each to become the national champion.

     Said Piearcy, “I’ve never really been out of state for high school season. This was my first out of state high school trip.”

     Piearcy’s matches were split up between Friday and Saturday. She further elaborated on this by saying: “On the second day, I had four matches. In my first match, I wrestled a girl from Kansas, and I beat her 9 to 1, which is called a major decision. Then my second match of that day was my quarterfinals match and in it I wrestled a girl from Wisconsin, and I beat her in double overtime by one point. My semifinals match was against another from Wisconsin, and I won. I believe the score was either 2-1 or 3-2. I’m not sure, but I know I won by one point. My finals match I won 2-1.”

     In her final match, Piearcy was wrestling against a girl who had beat her three times in previous years. Piearcy explained that “she had lost to [her competitor] three times. The first time was freshman year. She almost got pinned, but she got off her back for three minutes. Last year she lost to her twice. The first time it was ten points and the second time it was by four points, so she was really nervous going into the match.”

     When the final whistle blew, and she was announced the winner Piearcy remembers the serial feeling. “It was so unreal [when I knew I won]. After the match, I was just mind blown. I remember getting my hand raised, thanking the other coaches and thanking the refs and just getting off the mat I ran and Jumped on my coach’s  back, and we just started crying. We were both so shocked and amazed that everything unraveled the way it did.”

     Next year Piearcy will be heading to Menlo College where she has already signed to the wrestling team. When asked how it feels to go into college wrestling as a national champion Piearcy said, “Well it takes an entirely different turn on it because I don’t want to feel like I have to do well in college just because I have all these high school accolades. I feel like it’s something that’s going to linger on. At the same time, I know that college is different than high school, so I’m very excited. It’s a different style, it has different tournaments, and it’s more competitive so I want to push myself and see if I can meet the challenges.”