Lady Trojans Show Growth and Grit at Falcon Open in Wichita

Wichita - The Colby Community College Lady Trojan wrestling team continued to build momentum in their young season, competing in the Falcon Open on October 31 at Friends University in Wichita. The event brought together several strong programs from across the region, but Colby’s women held their own, combining toughness, resilience, and team unity to post multiple medal finishes and a strong team showing.

The Lady Trojans scored 68.5 team points, placing solidly among a talented field that included perennial contenders such as Wayland Baptist University, Doane, and Northern Oklahoma College–Tonkawa.

Colby head coach Michael Ruiz said the best part of the weekend wasn’t just the results on the mat, but the way his team supported one another from start to finish. “The best moments actually happened watching the team support every one of their teammates,” Ruiz said. “Emma Hahn not only winning her first match but making it to the finals really stood out. When I first recruited her, she didn’t think she was good enough to wrestle in college. Seeing her get that first win and make a finals was a full circle moment—not just for me as a coach, but for her as a wrestler.”

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Hahn, a freshman from Ellinwood, finished as the runner-up at 207 pounds, earning 12.5 team points after pinning Lilianna Martinez of Doane in the quarterfinals and defeating Madison Welch of Northern Oklahoma by technical fall in the semifinals before falling in the finals to Doane’s Jessica Rodriguez.

At 180 pounds, sophomore Aime Hernandez Perez had one of the strongest performances of the day, wrestling her way to a third-place finish and scoring 15 team points. Hernandez Perez won three matches by fall, including a pin in her third-place bout over Karla Martinez of Friends University.

Redshirt freshman Catherine Dutton also earned a bronze medal at 207 pounds. After an early setback in the quarterfinals, she bounced back to win her final two matches—one by pin and another by technical fall—to finish third and add 8.5 points to the Trojans’ total.

Colby’s freshman class continued to make its presence known as several wrestlers picked up multiple wins. Freshman Isabella Garrity (117) scored 7.5 points with three victories, including two pins and a technical fall. Local athletes also made their mark, with Goodland’s Destiny Gonzalez earning two early-round pins at 145 pounds, and Oakley’s Atavia Cain racking up four wins at 160 pounds—three by technical fall and one by pin—for 6.5 team points.

Aspen Sharpe of Colby added a fall victory at 110 pounds, while Emma Parker from Utah turned in an impressive day at 131 pounds, notching four wins and scoring 7 points for the Trojans.

Ruiz emphasized that the results told only part of the story. “Everyone performed well,” he said. “We had Makalynn Spresser show real grit after suffering an injury. Catherine Dutton and Aime Hernandez Perez got their first matches in almost two years. And local wrestling stars like Atavia Cain and Destiny Gonzalez are continuing to build girls wrestling in northwest Kansas. I could go down the list, but all of our kids battled their own adversities and this weekend a lot of us overcame anxiety, fear, disbelief, and more.”

The Lady Trojans will now shift focus to refining specific areas as they prepare for their next competition. “This week we’ll focus on scoring from front headlocks, understanding match situations, and creating better setups for our offense,” Ruiz said. “We didn’t build this team to be about ‘I’—we built it to be about ‘we.’ Our goal is to become one of the best programs in the country, and that means we move as a unit.”

Colby Community College will return to action November 14–15 when they host the Dust Bowl Duals and Dust Bowl Open at the Colby Event Center.