Champs Gomez, Jacobs Lift Girls To 3rd At CSL Mat Tourney

Illness kept Fatima Gomez from competing on a regular basis for the Evanston girls wrestling team at the start of the season.

Now, the ETHS senior is poised for a big finish.

Gomez captured the 190-pound championship Saturday at the Central Suburban League tournament held at Niles North, joining teammate Oyetola Rachael Jacobs (120 pounds) as Evanston’s only individual champions as the Wildkits surged to their best finish ever in the short-lived history of the team competition.

Those two titles, plus runnerup efforts by Kyra Rivera at 115, Samantha Gipson at 130 and Isabella Vernon at 155, boosted ETHS to third place in the team standings with 171 points. Maine East ruled the team competition with 211 points, followed by Maine South (172.5) in the 12-team field.

Gomez, the No. 2 seed in her bracket, turned the tables on top-seeded Angie Wszolek of Maine East in the finals after losing to her twice during the regular season. Ahead 3-0 after scoring a first period takedown, Gomez pinned Wszolek at the 64-second mark of the period.

That marked the third straight fall of the tourney for Gomez, who upped her won-loss record to 15-5 on the season.

“I’m still in shock! This feels really, really good,” said Gomez, who shed a few tears in the aftermath of the biggest win in her 4-year career. “This has been my goal for the past year, to win conference as a senior.

“I didn’t do any (wrestling) activities during the summer because of summer school (for driver’s education). And I was sick twice at the start of this year with flu and allergies, and I missed some time. It was hard for me to stay in shape,” Gomez admitted.

“But since last year my mentality has changed. I’m a lot more aggressive now. Today I just kept telling myself that I was strong, that I can do this. I just kept fighting --- and it worked. Now, my goal is to make it to State.”

At 120, Jacobs lived up to the No. 1 seed in a bracket that featured just 7 grapplers overall. She pinned Deerfield’s Belinda Esparza in 2:47 in the title bout after also scoring a fall (in 4:36) against Crystalia Psyhogios of Maine South in the semifinals.

Jacobs, a sophomore, improved to 20-7 on the season after winning just 4 of 19 matches a year ago.

What a difference a year makes.

“I’ve been able to consistently place in tournaments this year and I’ve really improved a lot,” Jacobs said. “Last year was not as good as I wanted it to be. Since then I’ve spent so much time in the (practice) room, working to get better, and it’s great to see all that hard work pay off.

“It feels good to win the conference. This is a really big step for me. I’ve improved with my confidence --- last year I was really nervous in my matches --- and this year my technique is much better, and I can execute my moves much better.

“It wasn’t a shock for me to win (in the finals) because I wrestled that girl before and beat her. I just tried to make as few mistakes as possible. Now I want to get past the sectional (to State) and I’ll work as hard as possible to get there. If I work hard on my technique, I know I can get ever better.”

Both Gomez and Jacobs won first place medals for the program a year after Kennedy Murray became the first ETHS female grappler to claim a CSL title. And the list might have been even longer except for the fact that the other three Kit finalists fell short in their respective title bouts.

Maine South’s Annika Lee pinned Rivera in the second period, Gipson suffered a fall at the hands of Maine East’s top seed Alena Oshana in 3:15, and Vernon was pinned by Highland Park’s Destiny Cardona in 3:18 after Cardona had upset No. 1 seed Natalie Rumpel of Deerfield in the semis.

ETHS assistant coach Antonio Martinez hoped for more champs, noting that at least one more win could have lifted the Wildkits to at least second place in the team standings.

“Our champions did a good job of pinning their way through the tournament,” Martinez remarked. “It would have been nice to have all five of our finalists win, but putting five girls in the finals is good, too.

“We bumped everyone up a weight (except for having no entry at 170) so we could give some other girls a chance to wrestle who probably won’t wrestle in the regional. We told them if you score points, you’ll be a hero --- and we had a lot of heroes today.

“Fatima had a slow start to the season, that’s true. But she’s taking wrestling more seriously this year (as a senior) and she’s really learned a lot from her losses. What adjustments can I make? What can I do better? Today it was evident that she’s made a lot of adjustments. It’s not just that she’s winning, it’s HOW she’s winning. She’s starting to figure things out.”

Martinez also noted that Jacobs has trained with some of the younger members of the Evanston boys team to help her turn things around in the sport.

“She’s actually split her (practice time) with the girls and the boys. It was her idea, and I don’t mind if they do that as long as they’re careful,” he explained. “The boys wrestle harder and stronger and it’s a good way for her to learn technique.

“Rachael has improved quite a bit this year. She’s a lot calmer out there, instead of getting over-excited and over-reaching like she did sometimes last year. Now she’s calmer, she’s taking more shots (on offense) and she looks good.”