NSAA STATE WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Arcadia/Loup City’s Rylee Kursave is the newest member of an exclusive club.
Wednesday evening, on the mats at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Kursave became just the third individual wrestling champion in the history of the sports cooperative, and the program’s first-ever girls state champion.
“It feels unreal,” Kursave said after winning the individual title at 170-pounds. “It means everything. I could have not done it without my amazing coaches and everyone whose watching me from home and everyone you traveled up here.
“I give glory to God for sure. This is a God thing. I was not supposed to win, and I just prayed more than I had ever prayed before.”
The Arcadia High School junior secured the gold last week with a late pin opposite Catalina Jones of Louisville. The Rebel put the Tiger on her back with two seconds left in the match to secure the win.
In the championship bout, the Rebel took the early lead with a first-period takedown. That manuever put Kursave on to 3-0, and, according to the champion, helped propel her to the title.
“I listen to Bo Bassett and everyone talk and he, and all the greats, always say that the first person to get the first takedown is most likely to win the match,” Kursave said. “That is not always true. One-hundred- percent that is not always true, but I do kind of live by that.
“If you get points early on then you are sitting pretty good.”
Against the Lion, Kursave found herself in a roll in the second period, with Jones getting the reversal and two points.
“The only thing that I could think of is that, no matter what, I can not go to my back,” Kursave said of Jones’s offensive maneuver midway through the bout. “When she had the upper hand there, I just made sure that I had my hips up and that I didn’t roll.”
The Rebel finished the match with an escape. Kursave then got a takedown and capped off her championship run with the pin.
“It is amazing,” she said of the victory. “I was telling my coaches earlier that, as a little girl, I wish that I could go back and tell myself about everything that has been happening this week.
“I never would have dreamed of going out for wrestling, and here we are.”
Saying that she “didn’t think the whole thing was real,” Kursave noted that, there was no small amount of nerves heading into the finals on Wednesday.
“I was so terrified to walk through the tunnel,” she said. “Then, I got there, and I was like, I am not scared. I don’t need to be scared.
This is no different than the finals of any other wrestling meet.”
That lack of fear was the result of endless prayer.
“I prayed, prayed, prayed. I can’t stress that enough,” noted the champion. “I made sure that my coaches knew how grateful I was to be here and I had so many people supporting me.
“I didn’t do it for them. I didn’t do it for me. I did it for God’s glory, for sure.
“I just made sure that I was grateful for everything else.”
Kursave’s entire run through the bracket at the NSAA Class B Girls State Wrestling Championships was a whirlwind.
The Rebel turned heads early in Omaha when she won her first match by pinning Ava Ferguson of Conestoga.
After that win, Kursave met up with Emma Finecy of Lakeview.
The Viking sported a 44-2 record heading into the match, but the Rebel was able to lock her up in the second period to advance.
It was at that moment that Kursave said she knew that she had a shot to bring home a state title.
“When I beat Finecy in the quarterfinals, I was like, ‘You know, I can do this.’” After winning in the quarterfinals, Kursave marched to the top of the medals stand with a second-period pin against Shae Jackson of West Holt in the semifinals.
With her gold medal in hand, Kursave said that, from the beginning of the season, she knew that she had what it takes—and she had the coaching in her corner—to finish on top in Omaha.
“Absolutely this has been the goal,” noted the junior. “Throughout the season my coach has been telling me that this loss doesn’t matter. This one doesn’t matter. What matters is the preparation for February when we are coming in and showing the world what we are made of.”
The Rebel said that throughout last week’s tournament she had been receiving words of encouragement from friends and teammates back in central Nebraska, including members of the Rebels’ junior high program.
“I had so many of the junior high girls messaging me and texting me, and so many of their moms,” she said.
“They were telling me how good of an example I was setting and that I was really lighting up a good path for the girls’ wrestling program.
“I hope that is true. I hope it stands out like that.”
As for her own prep career, the junior said she hopes last week’s title is just the beginning.
“I am just going to continue to be grateful.
I am going to continue to be grateful, to pray hard, to give the glory to God, and continue to listen to what my coaches have to say, all the way.
“I think we can do this again.”
