Sarah Henckel to wrestle in Who is No. 1 tournament

Southbury’s Sarah Henckel will be wrestling in FloWrestling’s Who is No. 1 preseason tournament. (Photo courtesy Sarah Jadach)

A Connecticut wrestler will compete in FloWrestling’s Who is No. 1 made-for-the-web preseason tournament for the second time next week.

Southbury’s Sarah Henckel will face Zaynah McBryde in a match at 138 pounds on Sept. 9 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It will be one of 11 matches on the girls side and 11 matches on the boys side.

The only other Connecticut wrestler to compete in this tournament was Danbury’s Ryan Jack, who was one of four wrestlers to compete at 132 pounds in 2019. He lost in the semifinals.

Henckel, a freshman who will attend Blair Academy in New Jersey this fall, won a pair of USA Wrestling championships this year. She won the U15 title at 66 kilograms (145) in Texas during May. It was her second consecutive U15 championship. She was 4-0 in the tournament with two technical falls.

In July, Henckel won the USA Wrestling 16U freestyle national championship at 138 pounds with a takedown with two seconds remaining to beat Wisconsin’s Faith Bartoszek. She went 6-0 in the tournament to become the second girl from Connecticut to win a national title in Fargo.

McBryde, who is from Buffalo, N.Y., finished fifth at the U15 nationals at 65 kg in 2021 and was third at 61 kg this spring in Texas in the U17 tournament. McBryde is homeschooled and has never attended a conventional school but is enrolled at Life University this fall at the age of 16.

Interested viewers can stream or watch the tournament from your desktop, mobile or TV. Now available on Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast and Apple TV. This is FloWrestling’s 10th annual Who is No. 1 tournament.