For South Winneshiek’s Felicity Taylor, it’s been a successful week of track and wrestling
Cody GoodwinFelicity Taylor stood on the turf inside Drake Stadium on Thursday and took a breath. The South Winneshiek senior had just finished running the third leg of the Warriors’ 4x800-meter relay. She was worn out, but still hyped up from a third-place finish.
“And I still have three more,” Taylor said and smiled.
Here stands one of the nation’s best wrestlers, who also happens to be one of the Class 1A’s most versatile track athletes. And because of some tight scheduling, Taylor has been plenty busy over the last week.
Last Thursday, May 10, Taylor competed at districts and qualified for four events for this weekend’s state track meet — the 4x800-meter relay, the distance medley relay, the 4x400-meter relay and the 800-meter run.
The following day, she flew to Irving, Texas, for the Junior women’s freestyle world team trials. Taylor reached the finals at 50 kilograms (roughly 110 pounds), but fell in the best-of-three finals to Alleida Martinez out of California, narrowly missing out on making the Junior world team.
Taylor returned home on Sunday to begin preparing for this weekend. After South Winneshiek’s third-place finish in the 4x800 on Thursday afternoon — the time: 10 minutes, 8 seconds — she couldn’t help but smile as she recounted it all.
“It’s been a blast,” Taylor said. “We get to go shopping tonight, so if that counts as rest, then that’s where I’ll get it.”
Taylor is perhaps the most prominent girl wrestler in Iowa. She competed at 106 pounds this past season, where she surpassed 100 career victories and came within one win of the state wrestling tournament. Only two other girls — Megan Black and Cassy Herkelman — have ever qualified.
But Taylor is also a competitive runner. She was South Winneshiek’s fastest racer during the Warriors’ fifth-place finish at the Class 1A state cross country meet last fall. Individually, she placed fifth in the entire 1A competition.
So when the calendar turned to spring, Taylor shifted her attention to the track. She took first in all of her events at districts last week. Entering this weekend, South Winneshiek ranked in the top three in all the relays in which she played a role, and she was the six seed in the 800-meter run.
That kind of dedication meant there wasn’t much time for wrestling.
“I didn’t get to practice wrestling much last week because I was focusing on track, because track obviously comes first right now,” said Taylor, who trains with Sebolt Wrestling Academy in Mason City. “I have been practicing just once a week since track started.”
Still, she wanted to measure her progress on the mat. She’s earned All-American honors each of the past two summers, and figured she’d try for the Junior world team. The tournament just happened to be right after the district track meet.
So immediately after Taylor swept all of her events, she and her family piled into the car and drove to Chicago. They arrived at the airport at 3:45 a.m. for a 5:15 a.m. flight. They landed in Texas at 7:30 a.m., then drove to Irving for weigh-ins. She got a total of five hours of sleep, she said.
“Weigh-ins ended at 8:30, and I got there at 8:10,” Taylor said. “I asked if I could check my weight, and they were like, ‘Nope, the check scale is gone.’ I made weight anyway.”
Then Taylor began her tear through the 50-kilo bracket. She stormed into the finals, outscoring her four opponents a combined 30-7. She beat Maria Vidales, a women’s college wrestling national finalist, 7-4, then topped Charolette Fowler, a U23 world team member, 11-3.
In the finals, she squared off against Martinez, who beat Taylor by technical fall at the 2016 Cadet freestyle national championships. In a best-of-three format, Martinez beat Taylor, two matches to one — she won the first match 3-1 and the third match 5-2. Taylor won the second, 3-3 on criteria.
Despite missing out on the 2018 Junior women's freestyle world team, Taylor was upbeat about all she had accomplished in a short amount of time. She even credited her track training for helping her at times.
“I definitely was not out of shape for any of those matches,” Taylor said and laughed. “They even helped me win some of them. I could tell that I was in better shape even though I hadn’t been wrestling.
“I didn’t know how I’d wrestle against college girls, then I took out those two girls and I was like, 'I’m right where I need to be.' I just need to keep working hard this summer, and I’ll achieve my goals. I’m excited.”
Taylor is still in line for a busy summer. She plans on wrestling at the Junior national championships in July, and will also get to represent the United States at the Junior Pan-American Championships in Brazil in August. After that, she’ll begin her collegiate career at McKendree University in Illinois.
But before all of that, she has business to attend to here in Des Moines.
On Friday, Taylor will run in the distance medley relay in the morning and the 4x400-meter relay preliminaries in the afternoon. On Saturday, she’ll compete in the 800-meter in the morning and, if the team qualifies, the 4x400-meter relay final in the afternoon.
And after the last week of success — both on the mat and the track — Taylor doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.
“It’s been a crazy couple of days,” she said, “but I’m rested and I feel good.”
Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.