Wellington 190-pounder Aubrey Hunt wins the Class 4-1A state wrestling championship
Victorious Aubrey Hunt at 190.
By Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Aubrey Hunt, a 190-pounder from Wellington, won the state championship in the Class 4-1A State Wrestling Tournament in Salina on Saturday evening.
The Wellington senior defeated Abby Brenn of Winfield in what has been deemed an upset for the 190-pound crown. Hunt lost to this same girl in the Class 4A Regional in McPherson two weeks early by a technical fall 16-1. The two girls had split during the regular season.
Hunt on the victory stand. (Courtesy photo by Tim Baca).
Hunt scored a 6-2 victory at the Tony Pizza Center. The two were scoreless for the first period and Brenn had an escape in the second to go into the final two-minute stretch in front 1-0.
Then came the strategy of stalling and getting your opponent to take you out of the wrestling circle. In less than a minute — from 1:29 to 42 seconds left, Hunt was able to get out of bounds as her opponent held her, not wanting to give up an escape.
This process caused Hunt to garner four penalty points for three stalls and two locked hands before eventually scoring the match-winning reversal to win the state championship.
Hunt’s victory caps an improbable career in which, as a sophomore, she joined wrestling not knowing a thing about the sport. A year later, she finished as the 4A state runner-up at 190 before this season.
Hunt in her championship quarterfinal match.
Her victory gave Wellington its first state championship since Hagen Wright in 2022 and Anna Cullens in 2020. Interestingly enough, in the five years of sanctioned girls’ wrestling, Wellington has had a finalist in a weight division. The girls are currently 2-3 in state finals.
The victory came after a long day of wrestling at the Pizza Center. This marked the first year that the Class 4-1A girls were combined with the Class 4A boys and Class 3-1A boys for a three-day event in the same locale.
2024 Girls 190-pound weight class. (Click to enlarge)
After two rather quickly run days of wrestling on days one and two, where there were eight mats, the third-day drug as the first, third, and fifth match finals were on one mat for the three classifications. Hunt’s match began at 7:35 p.m. — three hours after the initial finals opening round ceremony. It was her only match of the day.
Hunt came into the tournament as a No. 2 seeded wrestler in her weight division. She opened with a pin over Caydence Carter of Plainville. Her second match was a doozy, barely beating Elee Pittman of Baldwin 4-2 in overtime.
On Friday, she squared off against Brooke Smith of Oakley, winning 4-2, setting up the showdown with Brenn for all the marbles. Brenn was 33-2 as a sophomore battling Hunt, who was 33-3 and a senior.
Hunt’s state championship ride was counter to what was a bleak weekend for the Wellington wrestling program otherwise. The four boys were swept on the first day and were eliminated from the competition.
Hunt goes 4-0 in the state wrestling tournament.
Maddie Fullerton, a freshman at 130, also lost her two matches. But both of those were close.
As for Hunt, it was quite a ride to get here. Wellington head wrestling coach Mitch McComb said they went into the championship with a completely different mindset.
“Wrestling is as much about strategy as it is about brutally competing against one another,” McComb said. “We completely changed our tactics against Brenn and that is how we won it. It sure made the ride home a lot more fun with Aubrey as the state champion.”
