By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Cue the Eminem song: If you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it? Or let it slip? Great Bend High School senior Daizy Gomez chose the former. Saturday afternoon at Hartman Arena in Park City, she pinned Spring Hill senior Gracie Oppeau for the Class 6-5A 130-pound state wrestling title.
"It felt pretty good," she said. "It felt pretty accomplishing. I thought it was going to feel a lot better. I thought I was going to jump up and down, scream, do something crazy. But it just felt accomplishing."
Gomez got her start in combat sports as a sixth grader when she trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a sport that emphasizes ground fighting and grappling. She later asked Norbert Muth, her middle school English teacher and a wrestling coach, if she should try a new sport.
"I didn't remember a lot of what I learned then," Gomez said, "which I'm glad because there's some dangerous stuff I could potentially get in trouble with wrestling. But it's still a combat sport."
By her sophomore season of high school, Gomez climbed all the way to fourth at state as a 126-pounder. She stayed at 125 pounds the next season and finished fourth at state again.
Throughout her high school career, Gomez's main foe was Dodge City's Ariana De La Rosa. De La Rosa won the first 14 meetings between the two, including regional finals in 2022 and 2023, and the third-place match at state in 2022. Gomez nearly had the pin against her rival in the 2023 regional finals but was ruled out of bounds. De La Rosa again defeated Gomez at the Christmas Clash at GBHS to open the 2023-24 season. Finally, again at home for a Dec. 15 dual, Gomez turned the tables and pinned De La Rosa.
"Sometimes, I don't expect how aggressive she is," said Gomez. "When she was on top and got me in that cradle, and I'm pretty sure she took me down. That's five points right there. Wrestling someone that's a lot stronger, it's a difficult task.
"It wasn't as big a win as I thought it would feel like. I knew how close I was getting, and I finally did it. So, yeah, it felt good but I think it should have happened a long time ago."
Gomez last a 5-4 battle to De La Rosa in the 2024 regional finals. The two were headed toward a final showdown in the state championship match before Oppeau pinned De La Rosa in the semifinals. Despite years of hard-fought matches, the relationship between the rivals remains cordial.
"We talk here and there," Gomez said. "We went to camp at Fort Hays in the summer and she was my partner there but we don't really talk very much. Sometimes here and there."
Great Bend started the Christmas Clash, a rare two-day girls' tournament as a way to prepare the wrestlers for the two-day state format. This year, however, the Class 6-5A championships were spread out across three days.
"If it was a three-day last year, I don't know if I would have made weight all three days," Gomez said. "This year, I didn't really struggle with my weight. It gave us a lot more recovery time between matches so I felt brand new every day."
The extra days also meant extra downtime for wrestlers who advanced through the bracket. Gomez wrestled just four times in three days, winning her semifinal match Friday evening and waiting until late Saturday afternoon to wrestle in the state championship match.
"Our coaches would make us wake up semi-early, around seven, even if we weren't wrestling until noon just so we wouldn't be lazy and mopey the whole day and we'd have energy the whole day," she said.
Then it was time for the big event. A Parade of Champions precedes the state title matches. It's a way to recognize the achievements of the wrestlers, but it's also another distraction for the wrestlers, especially first-time state finalists.
"It was the state finals and I just thought of it as another match," Gomez said. "Yeah, it was pretty nerve-racking with how big the arena makes the match seem and how big a deal it really is, but I just told myself it's another match. Go out there and do what you love to do and win the state title."
As a regional runner-up behind De La Rosa, Gomez entered the state bracket as the No. 6 seed despite having the best record with three losses on the season. She pinned her way to the finals, including a 40-second semifinal win against Blue Valley Southwest.
Oppeau, a regional champion, entered the bracket as the No. 4 seed with six losses. She needed just 17 seconds to pin her first opponent, then used a 3-2 decision to slip by Emporia. She pinned top-ranked De La Rosa in the semifinals.
Gomez dominated the final match from the start, scoring two points with a takedown just seconds in, then using a chicken wing to keep Oppeau on the mat. Action was stopped as Gomez was penalized a point for holding her opponent's singlet, but she still led 7-1 after one period. Gomez chose neutral to open the second period, got another take down, and used the chicken wing to pin Oppeau just 29 seconds in.
"I had a really good shot at winning, but at the same time, I would have much rather wrestled Ariana in the finals and beat her. It would have been a lot more fun."
Gomez ends her senior season with a 38-3 record. She will wrestle at Friends University in Wichita next year.