A new chapter: AGWSR's Gerbracht wins girls state title

WAVERLY – About seven years ago, Chad Gerbracht took a photo that he wanted to share with his daughter, Ali.
 
The photo was a shot of the eight medal-winning wrestlers in Class 1A's 106-pound division standing on the podium at the state meet in Des Moines.
 
Eddyville-Blakesburg's Megan Black was one of those eight wrestlers on the podium that day, the first girl to win a medal at the Iowa state wrestling tournament.
 
Chad's message to Ali: "This is you someday."
 
Ali Gerbracht's been in the wrestling room since she was four years old, putting in the hard work necessary to reach 77 career wins to date as a junior on the AGWSR wrestling team, with Chad as Cougars head coach.
 
On Saturday afternoon at Waverly-Shell Rock High School, Ali captured the 106-pound title in Iowa's first-ever girls state wrestling tournament, the first of 10 girls on Saturday to win a state title and put their names on the opening line of a new page of the wrestling history books, a page that belongs to the girls.
 
That status hadn't fully sunk in when Ali had her arm raised in the center of Waverly-Shell Rock's gym. But she said she knew the first thing she wanted to do after becoming a state champion was to leap into her father's arms.
 
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