Those Trumbull High School grappling girls did it again.
Last year Trumbull won the inaugural Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Girls Wrestling Championships in which team scoring was kept.
High school wrestling for females has become so popular with steadily increasing numbers in participation that the CIAC wisely decided to implement team scoring last year after plenty of years since 2020 in which girls competed for individual championships in a post-season state championship meet.
So, Trumbull won that first-ever team championship last year and this year coach Joe Vano’s Eagles defended their title with 113.5 points, 25 more than runner-up New Milford with 107. Maloney placed third with 100 points.
Stamford finished ninth with 67 points as the other FCIAC team in the top 10. Westhill placed 11th with 57 points as there were 73 schools statewide that scored points among the 78 schools which had wrestlers compete.
Superb senior Marangelie Teixeira won her third state championship in her 165-pound weight class, senior Jillian Blake (120-pound class) won her first state title and was selected the tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler, and Emma Rial (126) placed third to help lead Trumbull to the state championship.
Teixeira and Blake were two of the three individual state champions from the FCIAC.
Norwalk’s Jeily Euceda defended her 235-pound championship when she pinned Maloney’s Arianna Bellamy at 4:34. Last year Euceda copped her first state crown when she pinned her opponent in 20 seconds.
Teixeira won a state tournament rubber match to conclude one of the great rivalries in the high school female wrestling in Connecticut.
When Teixeira and New Britain High School’s Kaydence Atkinson were freshmen in 2023, they had their first showdown in the 165-pound championship match and Teixeira won when she registered a fall at 2:34.
Teixeira defended her 165-pound final when she pinned another opponent in her sophomore season. Last year Atkinson and Teixeira advanced to the 165-pound final and Atkinson denied Teixeira the three-peat by winning a 5-3 decision.
This year Atkinson took a 1-0 lead into the third period. Midway through the period Teixeira executed a clutch reversal and then pinned Atkinson at 5:14 to win the rubber match and her third state championship.
Last year Blake placed third in the 120-pound class and this year she won it with an impressive performance which ended with a technical fall against Fairfield Warde’s Monica Flores when Blake scored to increase her lead to 17-1 at 2:29.
In addition to Flores wrestling well enough to advance to a state championship match, the three other wrestlers from the FCIAC who advanced to a final and ended up a runner-up were Westhill 100-pounder Isha Khanna, Fairfield Ludlowe’s Ashlynn Cummings (126 pounds), and Greenwich’s Gaby Aliaga (138).
In the semifinal victories for that quartet of conference wrestlers who placed second: Flores won by fall at 5:36, Khanna won a tight 6-5 decision, Cummings pinned her opponent at 1:37, and Aliaga won by major decision, 19-9.
Rial was the one FCIAC wrestler who placed third and it stood to reason that the senior played a vital role in helping Trumbull’s Eagles defend their team title, given that she has been so strong and so consistent all four years.
Rial ended her career on a positive note when she pinned Platt’s Liliana Diaz 58 seconds into the 126-pound match to decide third place. Rial finished among the top four in her weight class in the state tournaments in all four years. Rial was a runner-up the previous two years (at 126 pounds in 2024 and at 132 last year) after having placed fourth as a freshman 126-pounder.
There were eight more wrestlers from the FCIAC who finished among the top six in their respective weight classes.
Stamford High School sophomores Gabriella Mighty (165-pound class) and Malia Melon (285), and Darien’s Nina Smith (120) all finished in fourth place.
Danbury’s Isabella Dupree (132), Westhill’s Mayelin Disla (165) and Trumbull’s Isabella Blanco (185) each placed fifth; and Amelia Guimond (138) of Staples and Stamford’s Princesse Stessy Hyppolite (132) both placed sixth.
Another example of the steady growth and popularity of high school wrestling for females occurred at Stamford High School’s Paul Kuczo Gymnasium on the Saturday night of Jan. 10.
The Trumbull and Stamford programs partnered up for a monumental milestone in this 65th year of the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference when they matched up in the first-ever girls’ wrestling dual meet in league history.
Both teams filled out full lineups for the varsity match which Trumbull won, 40-24, and many more young ladies wrestled in junior varsity matches.
AJ Rodriguez (100 pounds), Victoria Freitas (107), Evellyn Neiva (114), Liv Eaton (120), Blake (126), Rial (132), Teixeira (185) and Jade Castrillon (235) of Trumbull and Stamford’s Taliya Greene (138), Alani Mitchell (144) and Chole Daniele (152) can all lay claim to the fact that they were all winners in the first girls’ wrestling dual meet in FCIAC history.