Lilliani Denton, senior at Hayesville High School takes the silver.
By Daniel Sherlin
Guest Writer
Lilliani Denton, senior at Hayesville High School and captain of the HHS Women's Wrestling Team went to the 2024 NCHSAA Women's West Regional Tournament this past Saturday, Feb. 3 at North Henderson High school in Hendersonville, N.C. This is not her first time attending this event as she went and fought her way last year and achieved fourth in 2023. The difference this year is that women's wrestling is now an officially sanctioned sport in North Carolina by the NCHSAA.
This year Denton started the regional tournament facing off against Nola Walker from Newton Conover. Denton wasn't messing around and scored a take-down in the first 20 seconds applying pressure until finally subduing her opponent with a pin by using a move called a guillotine in one minute 34 seconds.
The next round produced a tougher opponent who was also mentally more challenging. This opponent had previously beaten Lilli at the beginning of the year. The challenger Sopie Stepp from North Henderson entered the mat with a record of 26-5. This match went all three periods and consisted of multiple take-downs, reversals, escapes and ultimately ended with Denton pinning her opponent in a half nelson with 40 seconds remaining in the match.
Winning this match moved Denton into the semi-finals and against a last year state qualifier, Paulina from Bandys.
These two were about equally matched and after three periods the match ended in a tie of three requiring overtime. Eventually after going into triple overtime Denton scored an escape bringing the score to 4-3 and pushing her into the finals. Denton ended up regionals with three wins and one loss grabbing second place and qualifying for the NCHSAA Women's State Invitational.
Denton now has an impressive 33-4 record and the first woman from Hayesville to go to state back to back and also the first to go with women's wrestling being an officially sanctioned sport.