Batres earns spot in Midlands Championship finals for third straight year

Greens Farms Academy’s Kayla Batres, top, made it to to the finals of the Midlands Championships for the third straight year on Tuesday. Above, she is competing against California’s Sophia Marie Gonzales to win at FloWrestling’s Who is No. 1 showcase event earlier this fall. (Photo courtesy Sam Janicki / SjanickiPhoto.com

Milford’s Kayla Batres is quite comfortable with the Midlands Championships on the campus of Northwestern University outside of Chicago in Evanston, Illinois.

The junior from Greens Farms Academy in Westport competed in the tournament for the third time this week. The tournament is primarily a collegiate event but it is an open tournament for wrestlers of any age.

She won the tournament in 2023 and 2024. On Tuesday, she suffered her first loss in the event when she was pinned in the championship match at 110 pounds by North Central College senior Kaelani Schufeldt in 4:02.

Batres was one of three Connecticut women in the tournament. Norwalk’s Calli Gilchrist of Brown University and Lindsey Rywolt from the University of Bridgeport also competed in the tournament at 124 pounds.

Schufeldt (14-4, 5 pins) was one of five individual champions for No. 3 ranked North Central College, who captured the women’s event.

Batres won her first two matches by technical fall, giving up just one point and scoring 22 points before losing to Schufeldt in the championship match.

Gilchrist, a freshman at Brown who graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall, finished fourth at 124 pounds with a 4-2 record. Gilchrist (11-3) won her first three matches to reach the semifinals before dropping a 12-4 decision to eventual champion Sarah Sterner of North Central.

Gilchrist won her first two matches by technical fall (11-0, 14-1) before getting a pin in 2:24. After dropping her semifinal bout, Gilchrist earned a 9-6 victory in the consolation semifinals before getting pinned in the consolation final by Madilyn Peach, a Wisconsin high school senior, in 47 seconds.

Rywolt (124) came into the tournament with an undefeated record of 13-0 in Bridgeport’s first varsity season. Rywolt won her first tournament match with a pin before getting pinned by Peach in 4:16 in the quarterfinals.

Rywolt (14-2) was eliminated in the consolation round after a 10-0 technical fall.

Brown came in 12th with 15½ points earned by Gilchrist while Bridgeport was 13th with four points earned by Rywolt.