By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
HARRISBURG, Ore.– The Dallas Girls Wrestling team dominated the field at the Harrisburg All Girls Tournament Saturday.
The Dragons came in with 16 athletes to compete. Of those 16, 14 placed. Of those 14, seven reached the Championship Match. Of those seven, two brought home titles in Ah Pymm McDanial at the 110-pound division and Polly Oliff at 115 pounds.
McDaniel dominated in her run to the 110 pound title with a 51 second pin in the quarterfinals, aTechincal Fall in the semi’s and a 10-2 decision in the Championship Round against Oakridge’s Vanessa Keller to finish off the tournament undefeated.
“I just learned what I learned in practice to take her down. It was a tough match. I’m just glad I competed well, I was on the offensive for most of the round,” said McDaniel.”For Districts, I really need to work on being off my knees more. Especially in the third round when it’s getting kind of tougher and cardio is running out, I really need to work on that and I need to be more on forward pressure, especially when I’m trying to break them down.
“It’s preparing me to have better offense for Districts, and hopefully, it all pays off at Districts.”
Oliff had a quick first match of the tournament Saturday to reach the semi-final round, a 44 second pin victory, but in the second and third rounds, her matches went the distance. Something that the senior 115-pounder takes as a positive going into the Regional District Meet here in a few weeks.
In that Championship Bout against Oakridge’s Emmalee Brisette, Oliff wanted to be the aggressor. The two had met before, and Oliff wanted to make sure she had a little better lead against Brisette this time around.
“I wrestled her once before already, and the score was pretty tight because I wasn’t shooting. So, my goal was to take a shot and make the score less tight. My goal was to score more,” Oliff said. “I wanted to get a few three-round matches before Districts, so I can be ready for my biggest challenge, which is Jennifer Russell from Corvallis. We competed at Lady Dragon (Invitational) and she beat me by a couple of points, so I wanted to get a few good matches in so I can be prepared for when I wrestle her again at Districts.”
Dallas recorded 211.5 team points in the win, taking the event by 81.5 points over second-place Crook County in Saturday’s tournament.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
