It truly is a great day to be a Hawk for Chloe Hoselton.
The Prairie Central athlete was the IHSA State Girls Wrestling Champ over the weekend and received an emergency vehicle escort from Chenoa to Fairbury Monday morning, complete with police, fire and ambulance vehicles.
“It feels unreal still,” Hoselton admitted. “It really hasn’t kicked in yet.”
Hoselton came back from an injury at sectionals with plenty of hard work.
“I wanted it more than anything and I’m happy I finally pulled it off at the end.”
After each match, Hoselton said she kept looking ahead to the next one while not worrying about anything else. This milestone was special for the Hoselton family as it was her dad’s birthday. Hoselton’s brothers and cousin were also there to cheer her on.
“They all knew I could win,” said Hoselton.
She is now the fourth champion in the family to bring home the title.
“We went down on Friday and she wrestled a couple of matches,” explained PC head wrestling coach Scott Ziller. “Then, we came back Saturday with the semi-finals in the morning.”
Hoselton had a really tough opponent – probably the one they were worried about most. Hoselton went out and wrestled really well and really smart, according to Ziller and beat the opponent before a tough match in the finals later in the day.
While several girls have wrestled in the past for PC, this is the first year they have had a group of girls.
“We actually made an effort to put girls only stuff on the schedule and this is the third year for IHSA having an individual girls state tournament,” adds Ziller.
They ended up with four girls on the team this year and are hoping for more in the future to grow the program.
Tucker Hillier is Ziller’s assistant coach and Hoselton’s training partner for much of the season. Stephanie Meints helped out this year as an auxiliary coach.
“She was great,” noted Ziller.
