Violet claims state's first gold

Violet Summers can lay claim to being the first female prep wrestling champion, and she earned it by the skin of her teeth. Make that the skin of her opponent's teeth. The Van Buren sophomore was declared the winner in the 100-pound weight class on Thursday when her opponent was disqualified for biting Summers on the left arm late in the first period. Summers was trailing 6-3 to Conway freshman Abigail Crawford, but after she and Van Buren coach John Petree talked to meet officials, Summers was declared the winner. She couldn't really explain what happened, but teeth marks on her arm were proof enough. "She was kicking my butt," said Summers, who won her other three matches earlier all by fall. "She was cross-facing the crap out of me. It was really painful. I don't really know what happened. It was kind of in the moment. Adrenaline was really high." Summers will go down in history as the first Arkansas state champion in the inaugural all-girls high school wrestling event sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association. She still felt like it was a dream half an hour later after she was presented her medal. "I still feel like I'm going to wake up in a few minutes," Summers said. "This is crazy, but I'm really happy." This was the second meeting between Summers and Crawford. Summers, who finished the season 20-2, was responsible for Crawford's lone loss back in November and Petree said she trailed in that match, too. "We knew it was going to be a tough match," Petree said. "She was beating us 6-2, and we head-locked her and pinned her. So I knew we weren't out of the match, but you certainly don't foresee something like that happening." Summers' teammate Addison Loney won the 140-pound class to help Van Buren to a sixth-place finish with 80 points. Both Summers and Loney wrestled in the boys' lineup for the Pointers last season as freshmen, which Petree said helped both transition well into all-girls wrestling this season. They each won matches against guys, too. Summers was undersized even this year in the smallest weight class for the girls, but she said wrestling at 106 against the guys last year was a big help. "I'm a little girl," said Summers, who said she actually weighs only 92 or 93 pounds. "A lot of the guys don't go easy. They'll get as hard as they can because they're afraid of losing to a girl. In those moments, you learn a lot of situational techniques. "All the guys I wrestled last year just prepared me for this year." Loney, 22-2, came into the state tournament with a purpose after losing in the 6A-West Conference finals last weekend. She had something to prove and did it pinning all four opponents including Mountain Home's Willett in the first period in the finals. "I think I needed that," Loney said. "I got knocked on my butt, and I needed that so bad. It broke my heart, and I shed a few tears, but the next day we went to practice, and I worked harder than the day before conference." Petree said she came back determined in the practice room this week. "You come back and you work harder," Petree said. "You've got something to prove to yourself and everybody else, and she dang sure did that tonight.

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Van Buren High School Athletics

VIOLET CLAIMS STATE'S FIRST GOLD

PAUL BOYD

Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette | 2/22/2020

PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Swofford