ELMHURST, Ill - Elmhurst University's Juliana Lefort is the first to place at the Annual Quad City D3 National Invitational for the Bluejays. Her effort finished as the fastest pin in the tournament. 

Lefort lost in the quarterfinals, where she moved on to the consolation round. In the final seconds, she finally secured a lock and threw her opponent for a four point pin.  With a place on the podium secured, Lafort secured another fall to move to the consolation semifinals, dropping matches to finish in 6th place. 

Two other Bluejays qualified for day two of competition and both finished with a 2-2 record in the National Invitational.  Bella Curacao, (131) lost in the opening round, but scored two hard-fought wins. Resulting in a 6-4 decision with a fall.

Grace Johnson, Elmhurst's starting wrestler 145 pounds, Johnson, down by a score of 7-1 against Daniela Myers (Maine Maritime), scored a takedown and fall to advance to the second round.  After a loss to Georgas (Ithaca), Johnson turned in one of the more remarkable matches in the tournament.  Losing by a score of 10-2 at the break against Christina Pahcheka (Schreiner), Johnson scored a takedown and two sets of near-fall points to pull within two points, score 10-8.  Then Pahcheka nearly earned the ten-point differential technical fall when she scored seven points in a row to make the score 17-8.  With nothing to lose, Johnson scored two sets of 4-point throws and a last second near-fall for two additional points.  A video review confirmed the final turn came before the buzzer and victory was awarded to Johnson by a score of 19-18. The 19 points earned were the most points scored in a single match at the tournament.

Four Bluejays earned victories at the tournament, Valentina Fantoni (117), Jala Singleton (124), Kendall Moss-Smith (124) and Viola Painetto (138)

There were 257 athletes from 13 different states at the two-day event.  Elmhurst University placed 14th out of 30 teams fielding a team of all freshmen in eight of the ten weight classes. Next up the Bluejays will travel to Ohio next Saturday Feb. 21st for the NCAA Women's Regionals.