Kenidi Nine, left, and Alex Garcia competed Friday at the IHSGW Girls Wrestling State Finals. (Photos by Karlee Clevenger)

It wasn’t the road trip either of the two wanted. But wrestling is a tough road to live on.

Wawasee sophomores Kenidi Nine and Alex Garcia both lost in the first round of the IHSGW Girls Wrestling State Finals, both by pin.

Nine, wrestling in her first state finals at 135 pounds, was paired against one of the top seeds in the bracket, Maddie Marsh of Pendleton Heights. Marsh wasted no time getting her offense going, scoring a takedown then a pair of near threes to take a commanding 8-0 lead after a period. Marsh came off the bottom and worked out of the hold and into her own hold, working over Nine into a pin at 32 seconds of the second round to knock the Warrior out of the Finals. Small consolation for Nine, Marsh would go on to win the entire 135 bracket, beating Homestead’s Katy Vardaman 7-2 in the championship match.

Garcia was next at 155 pounds, her second appearance at the big show in as many years. As Garcia has for most of her sophomore season, she took control early with a takedown, and that stood up as the only scoring for four minutes against Southport’s Leah Soots. But Soots would even the score with a takedown in the third, and that would materialize into the break she needed as Soots pinned Garcia at 5:09 to move on, ending Garcia’s season. Soots wouldn’t get past her next match and would take seventh overall, beating Bremen’s Makenzie Shumaker. Polishing off the 155 championship was Jay County’s Mallory Winner, appropriately named in beating Eastside’s Rhaigyn Trenary, 6-0.

Locally, two area wrestlers were involved in championship matches. NorthWood sensation, Naima Ghaffar, made it to the finals of the 120 bracket before losing just her second match of the year, pinned by Terre Haute North’s Sophia Buechner. In the 170-pound grid, South Bend Riley’s Nyisha Gindelberger finished as runner-up to Southport’s AvaLyn Mosconi, who won the bracket with a second-period pin.