Campus girls wrestling star surge to the top with Rocky Welton title sweeps
The leap seemed risky at first.
After competing at 155 pounds last season for the Campus girls wrestling team, Elayna Evans considered making a two-weight-class jump to 190 for her junior year.
What began as a coach’s nudge has turned into one of the biggest breakout stories in Class 6A this season. Evans is 27-0 this season at 190 pounds and is fresh off a dominant championship run at the prestigious Rocky Welton Invitational in Garden City this past weekend.
“She didn’t want to jump from (155) to (190),” Campus girls wrestling coach Jacob Allan said. “I told her, ‘I think if you trust me here, you’ll like the results.’”
Evans originally planned to move up just one class to 170. Instead, she followed Allan’s recommendation and made the two-class jump to 190, testing herself immediately against elite national competition at the Brian Keck Preseason Nationals in October. She placed sixth there, a result that reshaped her expectations and confidence heading into the Kansas high school season.
The difference since then has been stark. Evans, who was 27-10 last season and did not place at state at 155, is now 27-0 with 15 pins as a junior. In the latest rankings, she sits No. 3 in Class 6A at 190, but that is sure to change following her signature win in Garden City.
Seeded fourth at Rocky Welton, Evans powered through the bracket and delivered her biggest statement win yet with a first-period pin over Liberal junior Aileen Figueroa, the top-ranked wrestler in 6A at 190.
Allan said Evans’ rise has been years in the making.
“I’ve known she since was a freshman that she was going to be special,” Allan said. “You could just tell by the way she moves on the mat. She’s a real sweet, goofy kid, but once she gets on the mat, she turns on the switch and she’s a killer. That’s what you need to have.”
Her ambition is just as clear as her results so far this season.
“She wants a state title real bad,” Allan said. “At the beginning of the season, she looked at me and said, ‘Allan, I’m not going to lose another match in my high school career.’ I fully believe her and she’s held up to that.”
The move to 190 didn’t just change Evans’ trajectory, it helped reshape the Campus practice room. Now fellow junior Brooke Burling, a returning state medalist at heavyweight with similar title aspirations, has a practice partner.
Because Evans was working at 155 last winter, she rarely practiced against Burling. But since the move up, the two work together regularly and have helped elevate one another with their daily battles.
Burling, ranked fifth all-class at heavyweight, already had a strong resume after finishing fourth at last year’s Class 6A state tournament with a 35-5 record. This season, she’s taken another step forward, improving to 28-3 after her own title run at Rocky Welton that featured three first-period pins.
“Sometimes they need a little bit of a push to get going, but once they get going, they have some real battles in the room,” Allan said. “Those two feed off of each other.”
The benefits were clear in the heavyweight final at Rocky Welton when Ingalls senior Payton Smith tried to attack with a shot, a look Burling sees constantly in practice from Evans.
“Having a partner that shoots on her quite frequently in practice definitely showed up there,” Allan said. “Brooklyn sprawled out real easily and got in good position and was able to get the pin.”
Allan points to Burling’s athletic background as another separator at heavyweight. A standout all-league softball player for Campus in the spring as both a pitcher and hitter, she brings unusual mobility and body control to the division.
“Brooklyn is one of those kids who shows up to work every single day,” Allan said. “She’s a phenomenal softball player and that gives her a big advantage over a lot of the other heavyweights in the state. She has such good hips and lateral movement, so she doesn’t wrestle like a lot of other heavyweights.”
Together, Evans and Burling give Campus a rare one-two punch in the upper weights. Both have state-title aspirations and both seem to be peaking at the right time with regionals in two weeks.
What once looked like a risky jump in weight now looks like the move that unlocked Evans’ ceiling and turned Campus’ wrestling room into a proving ground for two of Class 6A’s most dangerous juniors heading into the postseason.
This story was originally published February 3, 2026 at 6:01 AM.
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