TACOMA – After taking sixth in the girls division at last year’s Mat Classic, the Mavericks came out on top at the Tacoma Dome this weekend and took home a first-place trophy and scored 136 points as a team.

This year’s girls wrestling season was the first to divide the girls into two separate brackets; a division for 3A/4A schools, and a division for 2A/1A/2B/1B schools.

“It’s a magical feeling,” Moses Lake Head Coach David Peralez said. “I hope these wrestlers understand what they’ve accomplished. To be the very first one in history (to win) the big school division – they’re the first ones and get to grow up, come back years from now for the next generation of wrestlers, point to the wall with their names on there and understand that they accomplished something that hasn’t been done before at Moses Lake.”

Five of the 10 Mavericks that went to state ended up placing; senior Jhaile De Guzman (100), junior Ashley Naranjo (115), freshman Reese Prescott (120), senior Bianca Johnson (130) and sophomore Katelyn Rodriguez (170). Naranjo, Prescott and Johnson all made it to the finals, with Naranjo taking home her second-straight state title.

“I had a lot of self-confidence going into there,” Naranjo said. “I told myself ‘I came here to win, coming out on top was the goal.’ I just didn’t let nothing stop me from getting what I wanted.”

Naranjo, who Peralez said hasn’t lost a match during her high school career, defeated Kira Songer of Marysville Getchell by a 7-1 decision in the 115-pound state finals.

“She was stronger than me, so I had to beat her technical-wise,” Naranjo said.

The junior said she used the first round of the finals to get a grasp on what her opponent was bringing to the match and adapted that to her game plan.

“I have a lot of experience, I’ve been doing this for 10 years,” Naranjo said. “When I get a feel for the wrestler in the first round, kind of feel how everything is going to play out and how hard it was to keep her down, so I just planned my match from the first round.”

Having experience in a state finals match helped as well.

“It definitely gave me a feel of what it feels like to be on that finals mat,” Naranjo said. “To have all these people watching you and stuff like that. I think it did help me a lot, I got all the nerves out last year.”

After the final whistle of the 115-pound girls 3A/4A match, Naranjo turned around to the Moses Lake faithful in the crowd and smiled, knowing she’d just captured her second-consecutive state championship.

“She’s one of those wrestlers where if you put a goal in front of her or a goal to accomplish, there’s nothing that’s going to stand in her way,” Peralez said. “She’s just such a hard worker, she really wants tough competition, she wants to push herself to her limit.”

Like Peralez has said all season, it takes everyone to be able to come out on top at state. Each of the seven Maverick girls that wrestled at the Mat Classic won at least one match.

“We talked about it all the way from the beginning at the parent meeting night – we said ‘It’s our time,’ it’s even on the back of our shirts,” Peralez said. “The message was, ‘We really believed it was our time, our moment, the wrestler’s moment.’ They bought into it, they worked hard for it. We talked about it often, and really, I’m just so proud of everyone on this team.”

With girls wrestling on the rise in Washington, Peralez said that Moses Lake’s finish at the 2023 Mat Classic will inspire incoming girls for years to come.

“These girls coming in the next couple of years, whether they’ve got wrestling in their background or they’re brand new wrestlers – like Katelyn Rodriguez, this is her second year wrestling and she places at state – they have something to live up to,” Peralez said. “That’s wrestle tough, wrestle the Moses Lake way, wrestle aggressive and show out.”

Through all the trials and tribulations that come over the course of wrestling season, the Mavericks made it through and finished at the top.

“All of us coaches are so proud of these girls and the way they’ve carried themselves through the ups and downs of the season,” Peralez said. “The resiliency mentally, and just the willingness to learn and embrace the grind of the season. We just couldn’t be more proud of them, and I hope they’re proud of themselves because they deserve everything they’ve got this year. They deserve this team title, they worked so hard for it.”

For Naranjo, she said her reputation as a two-time champion speaks for itself when it comes to returning to the mat for her senior season.

“I think it’s just my name, what I have coming behind me already – I’m a two-time state champ,” Naranjo said. “I’ve got to live up to it and get my work down on the mat.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.