On Sunday, District XI staged its first-ever girls wrestling championship. Northampton’s Mylea Lambert was seeded second at 155 but steamrolled her way to a historic district title.

Northampton district champions get their names put up in the wrestling room and the prestige of that honor is not lost on Lambert.

She noted, “At practice I’ll sit and look up at the banners. I’ll read names, years, weight classes, and I wonder, ‘Where are these people now?’. Especially the first name, the first district champ at Northampton. I wonder where they are now. It’s the coolest thing ever.”

Lambert’s finals opponent was Parkland’s Kelsey Gelb, the top seed, who came into the match with a 28-1 record and was ranked fifth in the state.

Lambert described her thoughts on facing Gelb, “I was scared at first. She’s an amazing wrestler. I’ve seen her wrestle before at duals and at EPCs. And when I saw her wrestle, I didn’t want to drop to 55. I didn’t want to wrestle her. Going out there, she was really strong on the head. On a good day for both of us, I think we’d bang heads and it would be a tie, but I think it was just a good day for me today.”

It was a very good day for Lambert as she scored a takedown 50 seconds into the match and followed that up with two 3-point nearfall sequences before finishing off the pin in 1:35.

The fact that she pinned her way to the title is no surprise. She is 16-1 on the season, with 15 pins and a forfeit win.

Dani Glaser and Taylor Sipel also medaled for the K-Kids, finishing fourth, but falling one place short of moving on to regionals. Sipel’s consolation bout was particularly difficult to swallow. She was trailing 8-0 when she got a headlock from a defensive position, scored a reversal and three near fall points, but her opponent signaled for injury time to get out of the dangerous position to avoid the pin.

Emilee Gaughran, Jaida Onyango, and Lilliana Brader all placed. Onyango and Brader finished fifth. Gaughran was sixth.

Head coach Joe Provini summed up the first year for the girls wrestling program, “Our goals didn’t really involve winning. Coach (Gina) Limpar and I talked about how awesome it would be to get the first dual meet win and to have a district champion. We got both of those.”

He continued, “Thank God I have coach Limpar. We wouldn’t have accomplished anything without her and her relationship with these girls. It’s unbelievable to see how much better they are today than when we started. Physically stronger. Mentally stronger. We brought seven girls here and six of them placed. That was above and beyond our wildest dreams.”

Of course, the season is not over for Lambert. Next up for will be Southeast Regionals at Quakertown on Sunday. She needs to finish fourth or better in the 8-person field to qualify for states, so two wins would do it.