La Salle-Peru senior Kiely Domyancich recorded her first career win at a JV meet in Princeton her freshman year.

On Saturday, she won there again.

Domyancich pinned her way through her bracket to win the 125-pound title in the second annual Princeton Invitational Tournament.

“I was nervous coming into this event because there’s a lot of good girls at my weight,” Domyancich said. “I had a big bracket with 28 girls. I won my first tournament here and had my first win, so winning it again four years later in a bigger, better bracket makes it better.”

Domyancich’s performance helped the Cavaliers place fourth among the 37 teams with 140 points. Minooka won with 163 followed by Geneseo (144.5) and Ottawa (140).

L-P had six placers. Sarah Lowery placed third at 110 - beating Minooka’s Marian Nordsell 6-4 in the third-place match - Marisa Eggersdorfer finished fourth at 155, Amelia Buckley (105) and Avalyn Edwall (145) each took fifth and Mackenzie Miller (135) finished sixth.

“I always want top three, but I can live with fourth out of 37 teams,” L-P coach Nolan Keeney said. “This is a tournament that’s getting tougher. It’s kind of becoming like the boys’ PIT. We’re seeing a lot better styles and a lot better wrestlers as we go on.

“I thought we did great. We started off a little slow, but as the day went on we started to win. We were wrestling to our competition, but we’re also stepping up against better wrestlers.”

For Ottawa, Lily Gwaltney won the 110 title. The Pirates had three runners-up in Ava Weatherford (140), Isabel Gwaltney (100) and Juliana Thrush (235), while Val Munoz (115), Jaiyden Provance (140) and Alivia Butler (145) each finished fourth.

“We didn’t have all our weights filled, so third place, I’m really satisfied with that,” Ottawa coach Kevin Aughenbaugh said. “My goal was to come over here and get some quality matches. Our first tournament was canceled because of the weather. As the new coach, I haven’t seen the girls in a tournament. I really wanted to see how they did in an all-day event and there was some really good competition here.”

Domyancich was not scored on in four matches. She pinned Moline’s Isabella Macias in 1:23, pinned Rock Falls’ Ryleigh Eriks in 2:46 and pinned Metamora’s Calliope Wiliman in 2:11 to reach the title match.

“It’s different going against 125 girls rather than 115 girls,” said Domuyancich, who placed fifth in state at 115 last year. “At 115 I felt like I was one of the bigger girls, but now I feel like I’m one of the smaller girls. Everyone is my eight. At 115, I was always the tallest girls, but now I’m wrestling girls who are taller. I like it.

“I noticed it doesn’t really matter how much muscle you have as long as you have the technique.”

In the final, she took down Kewanee’s JenDayia Crowe early, then pinned her in 1:04.

“I listened to my coach and I just stayed calm,” Domyancich said. “I know my takedowns. I know what works for me. It’s kind of funny because for each of the matches I did the exact same thing. I did a slide by to an arm bar. I was like, ‘I’m going to have to switch it up because I’ve been doing the same thing.’ But I feel like I work on it so much that it works. I do have other things if I need to switch it up.”

Lily Gwaltney, a transfer from Streator, won the 110 bracket. She won by fall, 15-0 technical fall, fall and by 8-6 decision over Minooka’s Marian Nordsell in the semifinals.

In the title match, Gwaltney and Erie-Prophetstown’s Rozlyn Mosher were tied at 7-7 after the first period and 9-9 after the second period.

In the final period, Gwaltney started on the bottom then recorded an escape and turned Mosher, pinning her with four seconds left.

“It’s good because it’s our first (tournament) of the year,” Gwaltney said. “I think my cardio was better than usual today. I usually get tired faster.

“(In the title match), I wanted it really bad.”

Thrush won her first two matches via fall before losing 1-0 to Unity’s Phoeniz Molina in the title match.

“Juliana Thrush wrestled a really good tournament,” Aughenbaugh said. “She came up short and took second, but it was against a really quality tournament. Ava Weatherford had a really good tournament. We had a couple surprises too. Alivia Butler lost one match and came back and had to wrestle six more times and she placed, so I was pleased with her effort. All around, I was happy with everything I saw.”

The host Tigers had three of their four entries place with Rylee Backes taking third at 105 and Abby Harris and Avalena Wunderlich each finishing sixth.

“I thought they competed really tough,” Princeton coach Steve Amy said. “We’re still working on a few small detail things to improve on, but overall I was pretty pleased with how they competed.”