Girls Wrestling: Yorkville junior Yamilet Aguirre takes second at IHSA state meet

BLOOMINGTON – Yamilet Aguirre can’t wait to bring along the next wave of female wrestlers at Yorkville.

Aguirre, a Yorkville junior, will have quite the resume to do it for one more season.

Her progression from fourth-best in the state last season to now second at the 120-pound weight class, suffice to say, left her feeling Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington gleeful.

“My semifinals match, after I won it, I was crying,” said Aguirre, who was pinned by Hononegah’s Angelina Cassioppi in the finals. “I was like: ‘Oh my Gosh, I did it,’ I’m just proud to say I made it here.”

Cassioppi and Aguirre met in the Geneseo-hosted sectional final a few weeks ago, where Cassioppi also pinned Aguirre for the title.

Having experience from last year’s inaugural IHSA-sanctioned girls state tournament proved to be beneficial.

Aguirre earlier Saturday won her semifinal match with a third-period pin of Bowen’s Monica Griffin, avenging a loss from last year’s third-place match.

“You see your competition and you know they’re probably not going to go away anytime soon, so it motivates you to work harder,” Aguirre said. “It motivates me to work harder. I know Cassioppi is a very tough opponent, but I’m really training hard to try and beat her. Or, at least, make it to the third period with her.”

“[Having prior experience against her] makes it easier,” Aguirre continued. “Once I wrestle them once, I’m not worried about how they wrestle, like what their style is, I kind of know what they’re looking for and what they’re going for, so it definitely makes it easier for me and I can envision what’s about to happen.”

Aguirre still aspires for that elusive state title, but her family is what motivates her to be the wrestler she has become.

“Definitely my family and my friends,” Aguirre said. “They have pushed me to be a great wrestler, so have my coaches. My family, we all did wrestling as kids and only a few of us stuck with it, but it made me get to this point and it made me work harder because I want to be better for them and I want to show that.”

Sandwich junior Ashlyn Strenz finished fourth in the 115-pound bracket. Red Bud’s Avery Smith won the third-place match in a 6-2 decision. Strenz like Aguirre won her first two matches on Friday before losing an 11-3 major decision to eventual champion Gabriella Gomez of Glenbard North in the semifinals.

Strenz was making her debut at the IHSA girls state tournament. Last year, She helped lead Sandwich’s boys team to the Team Dual state tournament. Strenz opted to compete in the girls state series this year.

“I feel like I really improved this season,” Strenz said. “I’ve been aware of my improvement this season. Last season, I would kind of go out and wrestle. Sometimes, I’d win. Sometimes, I’d lose. I would make mistakes, and I wouldn’t take much time in practice to acknowledge them or try and correct them, even in my head. This year, I had more focus on the stuff I was doing wrong, instead of the stuff I was doing good at.”

Those mistakes consisted of muscle-memory and a head-outside-single move.

“It doesn’t work as well because if you get stuck under there, a lot of times they can break out,” Strenz said. “Versus for an [head]-inside-single when you get stuck underneath them, there’s a lot less of a chance they’re going to break out and two points.”