A second-place finish at the UWW Junior Women’s Freestyle Championships in Irving, Texas has earned Martin County West High School senior Katie Lange an opportunity to represent her country.
She had a 5-2 record at 65 kg (143 pounds) in the tournament on Friday. She won her first five matches before dropping the final two.
Lange opened the tournament with a fall in 45 seconds over Isabella Mir of Nevada. She followed that up with a fall in 19 seconds over Angelina Archuleta of Texas.
In the quarterfinals, she would win by 10-0 tech fall over Samantha Snow of California, who was a fourth-place finisher in the NAIA Invitational this spring.
That advanced Lange to the semifinals to meet Destiny Rodriguez of Oregon, a U15 world champion and Cadet national champion in 2019 and Pan Am gold medal winner in 2018.
Lange trailed 4-2, but came up with a throw and a pin to advance to the best-of-three finals vs. Alara Boyd of Indiana, a Cadet World bronze medalist.
Lange won by fall in 28 seconds in the first match of the finals.
Boyd would win 4-3 in the second match and then also won the third and deciding match.
Her runner-up finish earned Lange a chance to wrestle for the United States at the Junior Pan American Championships in Oaxtepec, Mexico June 9-13. Boyd will represent the U.S. on the Junior World team in Russia in August.
This fall, Lange will attend Augsburg University and wrestle for the Auggies.