Metro wrestling: Titles for Cleveland and Atrisco, scintillating performances throughout

The marquee girls match resulted in a pin. Mason Posa debuted at a new weight, with familiar results. Cleveland and Atrisco Heritage left with the giant trophies.

There was plenty of wealth spread around Saturday at the Albuquerque Metro Wrestling Championships at Rio Grande.

The Storm boys, with 193.5 points and three individual champions, finished atop the team standings, 10 points in front of Volcano Vista.

Atrisco Heritage’s girls tallied 169.5 points, which was only 1½ points ahead of runner-up West Mesa.

BOYS: The Storm got first-place finishes from top-seeded junior Roman Luttrell at 121 pounds, No. 2 seed Marcus Abeyta, a sophomore who won big at 133 (he won his semifinal and final by a combined score of 37-2) and Wade Wallace at 152.

Wallace, a senior, was the No. 1 seed.

“It was nice to have all of us get a gold medal,” Wallace said. But he pointed out that the Storm’s metro trophy would be a short-term rush.

“We get 24 hours to enjoy our win and then it’s back to work right away,” he said.

La Cueva’s Posa for the first time was the curtain-closing match; he moved from 215 pounds to heavyweight for metros. He already is a three-time state champion and could do something singularly unique if he were to win state in four different weight classes. But he said he wasn’t sure he’d remain at heavyweight when state arrives later this month.

He is a combined 36-0 this season, and his Saturday included three second-period pins.

“It was pretty hard, moving those big boys,” he said. He spotted Manzano’s Israyel Barraza 36 pounds in the final before pinning him at 2:40. But other opponents were much heavier.

“They have like, 70, 80 pounds on me,” Posa said. “I was kind of gassed throughout the tournament. (But) I like the competitiveness at heavyweight.”

Volcano Vista had a stellar Saturday — all the rounds were contested in a single day — and had more individual metro champions (five) than any team in either gender. And the Hawks were down a few starters.

Bradley Martinez, a freshman and the 4 seed at 107 pounds, was the first of the five. He was followed by third-seeded Elijah Sierra at 127, top-seeded Xzavier Salazar at 145 where he had three pins and a technical fall, a tremendous Lorenzo Gallegos at 160 who was wrestling up a couple of weight classes but also had three pins and a technical fall as the top seed, and finally junior Elijah Gawronski at 189 pounds. He, too, recorded three pins and a technical fall as a No. 1 seed.

Atrisco Heritage, third with 183 points, just one-half point behind Volcano Vista, had two champions: senior Tatum Garcia (36-1), who shredded the metro field with four pins in his four matches at 171 pounds, and Damian Trujillo, the top seed at 114.

Senior Carlos Trujillo of Rio Rancho was the most unlikely of the 13 individual champions following his unexpected run to the top as the No. 6 seed in the 139-pound bracket. The last of the metro champs benefitted most from Posa vacating at 215, that being No. 2-seeded Tristan Caraveo of West Mesa.

GIRLS: A noticeably large number of athletes and coaches gathered around the mat when the 165-pound final arrived, the most anticipated match of the weekend, pitting undefeated Jaden Meadows of Sandia, the No. 2 seed, against undefeated Eloise Woolsey of Cleveland, the top seed. Both are juniors.

It was a scoreless first period. Woolsey, first with a takedown and then a near-fall, went out to a 6-0 lead on Meadows (19-1) before finally winning by pin at 2:39, early in the second period.

Woolsey (28-0) made a specific choice to move up from 152 pounds this week in order to face Meadows at metros.

“I just wanted to challenge myself,” said Woolsey, who moved to New Mexico from Hawaii last summer. She was a two-time state champion in Hawaii. “I like exciting matches like that.”

The two most recently were together at the Conflict at Cleveland, but wrestled at separate weights. And it didn’t sound like there was going to be a rematch at state, as Woolsey said she was planning to return to 152 pounds for the rest of the season.

In the team standings, although the Jaguars had only half as many individual champions as second-place West Mesa, it was Atrisco Heritage’s depth that led to this metro title.

Leslie Nayarez (dominant at 114) and sophomore Sophia Rimbert (now 31-0 at 126 pounds) were Atrisco’s champions.

West Mesa had four champions, including senior twin sisters Aliyah and Briyah Shipley (both No. 1 seeds), as the Mustangs made a serious push to capture the metro title.

Aliyah Shipley, the older twin by a minute, was the 132-pound champion with a tough 9-5 decision over Jessia Armendariz of Albuquerque High. A little later, Briyah Shipley earned the 185-pound crown with a pin midway through the second period.

“One-point-five points away from metro champions,” Aliyah said. “Just makes us work harder.”

The performance certainly labels the Mustangs as a serious threat to win state in three weeks.

“I think we definitely do (have a chance),” Aliyah Shipley said. “We work hard, we give it our all, we don’t stop moving, we don’t stop improving, we just keep moving forward.”

Also from West Mesa, Kayla Jose won by major decision at 120 pounds, and Olivia Brody registered an emotional victory by pin at the 4:39 mark as the 2 seed at 138 pounds.

The most exciting finish came at 107 pounds, where the 3 seed, sophomore Alina Franco of La Cueva, trailing 13-12 in the waning seconds, got a takedown of Atrisco Heritage’s top-seeded Ariana Martinez for a 15-13 decision.

Although Meadows lost, Sandia did have multiple metro champions in sophomore Neviah Varela-Marquez at 145 (where the top seed won by pin in each of her four matches), and freshman Kassandra Arundale-Walton, who is now 26-1 at 152 pounds.

The other two metro champs were Vanessa Ramos of Albuquerque High at 100 pounds, where the top seed had four pins Saturday, and Lydia Gabaldon of Moriarty, who each were victorious by pin.

Photos: Action from the 2025 metro wrestling tournament