Shoulder injury pushes Smith to 6th

CORALVILLE – A memorable performance from Fort Madison’s Mara Smith came to an end Friday afternoon when a Thursday shoulder injury resurfaced, ending her final run for a state wrestling title.
Smith was locked up with Waverly-Shell Rock’s Makana Miller in the third period of a 4-4 match in the IGHSAU Class 2.
The Lady Hound senior, battling strained tendons in her left shoulder suffered in her second match of the day Thursday, had just executed a toss on Miller, trailing 4-1 in the third to tie things up at 4. In the scrum, Miller rolled Smith hard to the mat on a reversal, aggravating the injury. The 2-point reversal with 11 seconds left gave Miller a 6-4 decision and sent her to the title match against Calista Rodish of Raccoon River-Northwest. Rodish, the eventual champion, took out Miller 15-2 Friday night for the title.
Smith was sent to the consolation side where she could wrestle back for 3rd place, but could do no worse than 6th.  After consultation with Head Coach Kyle Doherty, her father, Ryan Smith, the Bloodhound Hall of Fame boys' coach, and other coaching staff, the decision was made to default the other matches and not do any additional damage to the shoulder.
“I obviously didn't want to medical forfeit because this is my senior year and I didn't want to end on an injury,” she said. “So it was a really hard decision. But I have a whole, like, track season ahead of me so why risk making it even worse?”
Smith locked up the 6th-place finish after placing fourth at last year’s state meet.
Doherty said Smith’s last match with Miller was her best match of the year and the fact she was wrestling dinged up and fought to the end defined Mara’s career.
“You know it's a gonna be a gritty match anyway, and then, honestly, for her to go out there and wrestle even grittier than McKana Miller I believe, I just can't believe that she did that for a whole six minutes,” Doherty said.
“Under those circumstances, a lot of kids would probably find a way out sooner, but she was so close and I know what kept her in it was that she's like ‘I'm capable of beating this girl’.”
Mara said she was not giving up despite being in pain the whole match. She kept trying to lock in a front headlock off of Miller’s shots. Smith would throw her hips and legs back to fend off the shots and the secure the front head lock, but Miller was strong enough to fend that off about four times. It took Smith until the third to finally wrench Miller to the mat for three points, but then the shoulder gave out.
Smith said she sat on the mat and could feel the tendons randomly popping in her shoulder after the mat and she began immediately thinking about whether she could continue.

“It just like popped on its own again and again so I was like 'I don’t know how I'm gonna be able to defend myself with one arm against these girls',” she said.
“To get into the semifinals was such a big accomplishment for me because I've never done that before and I feel like I wrestled my heart out. That was one of my best matches. I put everything out there, so there's nothing to be sad about in that match.”
The decision to exit the tournament after the loss to Miller was a tough one, Doherty said, but to him it was weighing whether or not Smith could defend herself against some physical wrestlers the rest of the way, or would she risk a more severe injury.
At the end, it came down to not jeopardizing her final season of track where Smith runs 800s and distance relays.
“We thought, we gotta be smart here. You got another whole season right after wrestling and then, obviously, your future, so it was definitely tough and it's heartbreaking. But I think the big thing was being able to find some comfort in knowing that Mara probably wrestled the best match I've ever seen her wrestle.”
Doherty said Smith will be a name that’s carried in the foundation of the girls’ wrestling program.
“She’s the first. She’s the first four-time qualifier, the first place winner, the first dual place winner, she has the record for wins, I would think she probably has more than 100 pins,” he said.
 “I was just talking about this last night, but her career only shows a part of her story. The amount of stuff that she's probably had to go through and live up to and that’s having a Hall of Fame dad, a great family and stuff ,and trying to toe the line. So she’s exiting the program with something that will be with her forever and I think it was a really good career for the youth to look up to.”
Despite the lofty bar for future wrestlers in the girls' program, Smith said she hopes her biggest legacy was the support she had for her teammates.
“I just wanted those girls to feel like they could come to me for anything and just have a great season,” she said.
“I wanna make sure that the underclassmen first of all had fun, and I just wanted to be very supportive of them. We just had such a great time together and I’m very glad that we were able to do that.”
Smith finishes her career with a 133-23 mark with 104 pins in four years. Her freshman year was split between wrestling and basketball.