by Chase Porter and Coleman Armes
Staff Writers

For the past few years, Coppell High School has been a wrestling powerhouse. This year, the wrestling team entered eight competitors into the UIL State Wrestling Tournament at Austin in attempts to pin the competition for a state title.

Last year, during the 2009- 2010 season, the wrestling team won district and also finished second in the region. The team sent six competitors to the state tournament, held Feb. 25-26, with five of the six placing.

Many of these wrestlers that went to state last year graduated and now this year’s wrestlers took up the reins and sent four varsity guys and four varsity girls to the state competition.

“I’m proud of our team this year, both the boys and girls had great seasons for having graduated a lot of seniors last year, but the whole team stepped up,” Wrestling coach Chip Lowery said.

The guy’s varsity team was awarded fourth overall in the region and also qualified four members of the team to compete for a trophy. These wrestlers included Daniel Murillo, Kaleb Richardson, Mark McPherson and Matt Robinson.

“This is a huge accomplishment to make it to the tournament,” Lowery said.

Only the top 16 wrestlers from each region were eligible to compete for a state title from both the boys and girls teams. After the two days of the competition, senior and captain Matt Robinson pulled off a victory and took the title of sixth place overall in the 160-pound division.

“I just tried to go out there and make the most of the opportunity,” Robinson said. “I would have liked to place higher overall, but I feel like I went out there and gave my opponents all they could handle and I’m glad I could place for the team.”

All the wrestling coaches were extremely happy with the wrestlers both over the course of the season and at the state qualifying tournaments. The strongest wrestlers this year are from the 160-pound and up divisions, according to Lowery, and he hopes that next year they can give some of the returning wrestlers another shot at a state title.

The state competition is over, but the team is still practicing and training for the freestyle and Greco season, which is about to commence in these upcoming weeks. The team, coming off of a successful season, wants to take advantage of these new tournaments so that they can once again pin the competition to the mat.

Before competing for state titles, both the boy and girl varsity teams had to compete in the district and regional qualifying tournaments. CHS hosted the district 12 competitions on Feb. 7. Both the girls and boys varsity teams took second place over all behind South Grand Prairie.

The Coppell boy’s varsity team earned individual district champion titles from Roberto Montealegre, Kaleb Richardson, Matt Robinson and Sam Rice. The girl’s varsity team also earned individual district titles including Kaci Fullinwider, Tara Brandt and Nkem Ukoha.

From these decisive victories in the district tournament, 12 varsity boys and six varsity girls moved on to the regional matches held at Arlington Martin High School on Feb. 11-12. At this stage in the hunt for a state title, 70 teams were represented by its top wrestlers and only the top four teams could qualify for the state tournament.

During the regional tournament, the girl’s varsity team was named second place overall and four girls were awarded the opportunity to win a state title. These girls included Kaci Fullinwider, Lorena Ramirez, Tara Brandt and Nkem Ukoha.

For Ramirez, the senior girls captain, this was a great way to cap off her high school wrestling career. When Ramirez first started wrestling, against her fathers will, she was unsure what her future would be in wrestling. Now, after four years here at CHS she has become a leader for the girl’s team winning three straight district championships and achieving her goal of being invited to the state-wrestling tournament.

She also is receiving scholarship offers from Missouri Valley, Oklahoma City, Waldorf College in Iowa and Menlo College in California. As for her dad, Ramirez says that he is OK with the sport now, plus it doesn’t hurt that it will be paying for her college.

“Lorena has come a long way and she is a wrestler to watch in the new few years. Her talent has exploded into greatness and has no mercy on anyone and that makes her who she is, an astounding wrestler, leader, and teammate,” Fullinwider says.

Sam Ornell, a member of the boys varsity team seems to feel the same way about the rest of the team.

“All of them are good wrestlers and I think it’s great that they got to represent Coppell at state. That’s a big honor qualifying for the state tournament and all of them are definitely some of our best wrestlers,” senior wrestler Sam Ornell said.