Newman <\/a>junior just kept on winning, claiming four straight victories to take third place in the 110-pound bracket at the IHSA Girls Wrestling State Championships in Bloomington.<\/p>\nGrennan was one of two Sauk Valley area medalists. Erie\u2019s Michelle Naftzger took fourth at 135 pounds, the girls program\u2019s first medalist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe weekend went well,\u201d said Grennan, who was fourth as a freshman and was a win away from a medal last year. \u201cI\u2019m glad I could have that last one back.\u201d<\/p>\n
That last one was her third-place match against Elk Grove\u2019s Valeria Pesantes, who pinned Grennan in 1:17 in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Grennan returned the favor and then some in the third-place match, needing just 28 seconds for a fall against Pesantes for the third-place finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost to her in the quarters so it was nice to get kind of get that back and prove to myself that I can do that,\u201d Grennan said. \u201cIt proved to me I could do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lesson?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I attack, I win,\u201d Grennan said. \u201cI have to stay on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After failing to medal last year, all of Grennan\u2019s victories were pins, including the four matches after the quarterfinal loss to Pesantes.<\/p>\n
In her first match after the quarters, she was on the mat for seven seconds before winning by fall, then needed 38 seconds to win in the blood round and ensure a medal for the second time in three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really important to get back on track,\u201d Grennan said. \u201cIt really sucked losing but once I got back I just tried to trust my training, trust my coaches, trust myself. I just felt I reached a good point and can always get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naftzger had a similar road to Grennan, losing in the quarters but winning three times to reach the third-place match.<\/p>\n
Unlike Grennan, Naftzger fell in the third-place match, 13-2 to Stevenson\u2019s Karina Lojowski.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little bit of a roller coaster of a weekend,\u201d Naftzger said. \u201cI had a heartbreaker loss in the quarterfinals, so that was a quick turnaround to make it to Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the blood round, Naftzger beat Bella Castelli, 3-1 on a last-second takedown. Castelli beat Naftzger in the regional title match.<\/p>\n
Neftzgler said she was happy to make history for Erie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot. There are a lot of kids that are looking up to me,\u201d Naftzger said. \u201cThey\u2019re watching this weekend and I\u2019m just trying to set a good example for them. Just being able to show them what it takes to win, what it takes to lose and how to bounce back from that and how to be a good sport, it\u2019s great to be a role model for the future of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blair Grennan dropped her quarterfinal match on Friday and faced a long Saturday. But the Newman junior just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,982,59034,305,981,726],"class_list":["post-126437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-erie-prophetstown-preps","tag-girls-wrestling","tag-high-school-sports","tag-newman-central-catholic-preps","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}