A promise kept: Campus has its first Kansas girls wrestling state champion
By the time Elayna Evans stepped onto the mat for the Class 6A state finals this past Saturday in Overland Park, Campus girls wrestling coach Jake Allan already knew what was coming.
He’d heard it all season.
Again and again, the junior had told him she was going to become his program’s first girls wrestling state champion. And not just that, but she was going to do it undefeated.
And after three straight first-period pins at state, Evans backed up every word.
Evans completed a dominant 35-0 season by winning the 190-pound 6A state title, becoming the first girls wrestling state champion in Campus history since KSHSAA sanctioned the sport in 2020. Campus had produced three girls state placers before, but never a champion.
“I probably heard it 20 times,” Allan said of Evans’ constant chirping about winning state. “Before the finals match, I tried telling her it just like another match. But she was like, ‘No, I’m going to be your first state champion.’”
That confidence wasn’t empty talk. It was the defining trait of a breakthrough season.
A year ago, Evans was a 155-pound wrestler who went 27-10 and did not place at state. This winter, she moved up two weight classes to 190, changed the way she thought about herself and the sport and turned into one of Kansas’ most dominant wrestlers.
She wasn’t even ranked in the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association preseason rankings. It took three weeks into the season for her name to appear at all and she didn’t climb to No. 1 in 6A until the end of January.
By then, she had already become a problem for everyone in her bracket.
“Her mindset took a complete and total shift this year,” Allan said. “Last year, there was a lot of ‘I think I can.’ This year, it was ‘I’m going to.’”
That change, Allan said, was rooted in more than just technique or a favorable move in weight class.
Campus invested in a mental training program during this past offseason to help build self-confidence and sharpen the mental side of wrestling. Allan said no one on the team benefited more than Evans.
“They say 80% of it is in your head,” Allan said. “The biggest wars are six inches between each ear. The negative self-talk she would go through the past couple of years, that all went away this year after the program. I think that program really helped change a lot of the way she looks at not only wrestling, but life in general.”
The results were impossible to miss.
Evans received a first-round bye at state, then tore through the bracket with three first-period pins. She need just 94 seconds in the quarterfinals, 46 seconds in the semifinals and 77 seconds in the championship match to pin Liberal junior Aileen Figueroa for the title.
Her state tournament run looked like a continuation of the postseason she had already put together. Dating back to regionals, Evans needed less than seven minutes of total mat time to pin six opponents on her way to the title. Allan said that Evans had not been pushed beyond the first period since Feb. 4.
“I just wrestled how I normally do,” Evans said, shrugging off any extra importance to her state performance.
That didn’t mean she didn’t understand what she had accomplished.
“I was pretty excited because I’m the first girl in my school’s history to win,” Evans said. “Now I’m going to have my name on the wall where all of the state champions are.”
The title also gave Evans another chance to prove herself beyond 6A.
After finishing unbeaten and winning a state championship in dominant fashion, Evans was ranked as the fourth-best 190-pound wrestler in Kansas by the KWCA, regardless of classification. She will get an opportunity to challenge that pecking order at the Kansas Grand State competition in Salina on Sunday, where the top-three finishers in each classification meet in a true best-on-best tournament.
But for all of the pins, rankings and history, Allan said one of the moment he’ll remember most came after the final whistle.
In one of wrestling’s best champion traditions, Evans celebrated by picking up her coach and slamming him to the mat.
In that moment, it was maybe the purest snapshot of her rise: joy, confidence and a little swagger after doing exactly what she said she would do.
“It felt awesome sauce,” Evans said of the winning moment. “And then I got to drop Allan and that was the best feeling ever.”
Derby’s Presley Beard wins 6A girls wrestling state title
Derby freshman Presley Beard capped a perfect debut season with a 6A state championship at 120 pounds, finishing 32-0 after a 7-2 win over Gardner Edgerton freshman Aspen Walker in the title match. Beard was one of only two freshmen to win a 6A girls wrestling state title and ended the season ranked No. 1 in Kansas at 120 pounds, regardless of classification.
Wichita-area high school girls wrestling Class 6A state medalists
Campus: Elayna Evans, jr., 35-0, 190, first; Brooklyn Burling, jr., 37-4, 235, third.
Derby: Presley Beard, fr., 32-0, 120, first; Brooke Downs, sr., 40-10, 140, fourth; Chloe Spears, sr., 39-8, 170, fourth; Analicia Lopez, sr., 29-11, 190, fourth.
East: Jalaya Gibson, sr., 38-7, 135, third; Malila Woods, so., 28-8, 125, fifth.
Heights: Peace Nyakume, jr., 24-9, 125, fourth; Getzy Portillo, jr., 20-15, 135, fifth.
Maize: Scarlett Yeager, fr., 45-3, 140, second; Alayah Losey, fr., 35-4, 110, fourth.
North: Reese Anderson, so., 34-7, 120, third; Scarlett Villareal, so., 33-17, 235, fourth.
Northwest: Maray Rogers, jr., 41-9, 190, third; Amirce Robertson, so., 42-10, 100, fifth; Nayelli Carter, fr., 42-14, 130, fifth; Lily Land, sr., 38-15, 145, sixth; Jayden Gittrich, fr., 37-17, 105, sixth.
South: Nayomey Jennings-Smith, sr., 32-9, 155, fifth.
.jpg)