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Wrestlers shine at state girls tourney
0316 Girls Wrestling Championships
Four Effingham County wrestlers competed in the Georgia Girls State Wrestling Championships. From left to right are Kaytee Dangerfield, Amber Pair, Caitlyn Ertzberger and Mikayla Bushey. - photo by Photo provided

Four Effingham County wrestlers competed in the Georgia Girls State Wrestling Championships in Marietta on Sunday and brought home two first-place finishes, one second-place and one fifth-place.

Effingham County enjoyed a 1-2 finish in the High School 126-132-pound weight class. Amber Pair, a senior at Effingham County High, took first place, followed by ECHS freshman Kaytee Dangerfield in second.

Pair defeated all five of her opponents in the round-robin tournament, pinning four. Dangerfield won four of her five matches, losing only to Pair.

Another ECHS freshman, Mikayla Bushey, took fifth place in the High School 106 division.

Caitlyn Ertzberger, an eighth-grader at Effingham County Middle School, won the 6-8 125 division. Ertzberger finished a perfect 5-0 in the tournament, including two pins.

Dangerfield had the most pins in the shortest amount of time of any wrestler in the tournament, with four pins in a total of 4 minutes, 25 seconds. Pair’s four pins were in a total time of 7:02, while Ertzberger’s two pins were in 2:56.

The Georgia Girls State Wrestling Championships offer an opportunity to compete for a state title, since the Georgia High School Association does not yet offer a girls’ wrestling division. In its second year, the USA Wrestling-affiliated tournament at Wheeler High School had 52 participants.