Lily Blenk Awaits Appeal Process Decision After Controversy Surrounds Her Second-Place Finish in State Wrestling Tournament

Westhampton Beach sophomore Lily Blenk finished second in the 120-pound weight class at the New York State Girls Championships at MVP Arena in Albany on Thursday, February 27.

Or did she?

Blenk was facing Hicksville’s Haley Gonzales, whom she lost to earlier this season in a technical fall. This time, it looked as if Blenk was going to return the favor in the state championship match. She quickly went up, 7-0, and eventually led 9-0, needing just one more point to end the match early via a tech fall. Instead, Gonzales caught Blenk in a headlock takedown and pinned her with 15 seconds remaining to stun everyone and win the state title.

But since then, there has been controversy surrounding the match, with questions as to whether it should have even gotten to the point that it did.

According to Arthur Blenk, Lily’s father, the video footage of the match clearly shows that toward the end of the first period, a scoring error led to a pair of missing points for his daughter, and that when she scored two points in the second period, that everyone thought made the score 9-0, it actually should have been 11-0.

According to freestyle wrestling rules, which the girls compete in and is different than the boys folkstyle rules, the match is automatically stopped and a tech fall is declared when a wrestler is up by 10 points or more and that wrestler is declared the winner. In the boys folkstyle rules, tech falls are declared at 15-0.

The mistake specifically happened, Mr. Blenk said, when Lily turned Gonzales for a nearfall pin for which she was correctly awarded two points by the official refereeing the match. But the score on the scoreboard never changed, therefore when she scored the two points in the next period, the score was 9-0 when it should have been 11-0, at which point the match would have been stopped and Blenk declared state champ.

After watching the video footage of the match several times, Mr. Blenk, along with Lily’s coach at Westhampton Beach, Jakob Restrepo, emailed both New York State Public High School Athletic Association Executive Director Dr. Robert Zayas and the state wrestling coordinator to log a formal complaint and official appeal of what currently is the match’s official outcome, that Gonzales is the state champion. Mr. Blenk said that Restrepo got a response from the wrestling coordinator that said they had received everything and that they would hear back from Zayas.

As of Monday afternoon, there was no further word from Zayas, Mr. Blenk said, or anyone else from the state for that matter.

“Everybody missed it. Literally everyone in the building missed it,” he said of the scoring error. He said it wasn’t until he watched the footage of the match after the fact that he realized the error. “I think what happened was Lily was in the process of pinning this girl and everyone was so aghast that no one could believe it, including the scorer, and then time expired and it went unnoticed.

“Then 40 seconds or so into second period, Lily scored what rightfully should have been her 10th and 11th points, which the ref awarded but the scoreboard said 9-0 instead of 11-0,” Mr. Blenk continued. “Then Haley went on to take Lily down in a headlock which made it 9-2, and then she pinned Haley with 15 seconds left, but none of that should have happened.”

Prior to the state championship match, Blenk, seeded second, had ripped through her side of the bracket, as expected. She pinned Gabriel Jones of Yonkers in her opening-round match in 40 seconds, defeated Kennedy Lear of Alexander in a 12-0 tech fall, then pinned Savannah Tittleback of Saugerties in 1:43 to reach the final against the top-seeded Gonzales.

Mr. Blenk said he and Restrepo went to Lily on Sunday afternoon and told her they filed the appeal with the state the day before. Lily, when reached on Saturday night, had already said how devastating a loss it was.

“She had teched me earlier this year, and I worked all year to get to that point where I was up 9-0, one point away from a tech,” she said. “Then, with 20 seconds left, she puts me in a headlock and pins me.

“It was heartbreaking,” Lily added. “I had her beat. During the match, I thought I was going to win. That was my match, I was dominating her.”

Lily also said that what she learned from the match was that she shouldn’t have tied up with Gonzales that late. At the same time, from having wrestled Gonzales and watching tape of her, she had never shown she had a headlock takedown in her repertoire.

“I had a three-second lapse of judgment on my end,” Lily said. “She caught me and ended the match.”

Restrepo said Lily had an amazing run.

“She dominated in all of her matches leading up to the finals. No one really had any answers for her the entire tournament,” he said. “We had developed a game plan going into the finals, and she stuck to it. She was up, 9-0, one point away from a tech against the No. 9 ranked girl in the country, a really quality opponent.

“Regardless of the outcome, it’s humbling to realize that Lily is one of the top wrestlers, not only in the state but in the United States,” Restrepo said.

After learning of the appeal, Mr. Blenk said his daughter is still just as devastated, if not more.

“This is a painful thing for all involved,” he said. “The other girl, Haley, did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s an emotionally-charged issue in both directions. As Lily’s dad, I’m heartbroken. My daughter has worked so hard, to come this close. She really had her sights set on being the first-ever New York State Champion at 120 pounds, and she attained that. To give it to the other girl instead is heartbreaking for me.”

Mr. Blenk said he would like NYSPHSAA to do the right thing and overturn the decision of the match which would make Lily state champion. But he realizes that while that might be the right thing to do, it may be beyond that at this juncture.

“I suspect — at least what they’re going to say — is that once the wrestlers leave the mats, the books have closed, and that’s it,” he said. “But it’s cut and dry, the evidence is clear. And we’re not disputing any of the refs calls, we’re just asking them to count all of the points.

“And, look, this was the first tournament of its kind for the girls,” Mr. Blenk continued. “This was the first state tournament in the country to feature freestyle in any gender, a lot of people are watching. All of the other tournaments are folkstyle. But this wouldn’t happen in Pennsylvania, this wouldn’t happen in Ohio, and it wouldn’t happen on the boys side.”

Mr. Blenk said he’s already been in contact with an attorney, one who deals with such situations, he said, and he’s prepared to file a lawsuit if it comes to it. There have been multiple lawsuits filed this winter in Suffolk County that have resulted in student-athletes having suspensions lifted by judges, but that is different than appealing or filing a lawsuit on a result of a sporting event.

“In all fairness, Lily Blenk won that match,” Mr. Blenk said. “Anything that might have happened after 11-0 stops the match, in my opinion, and she should be the 120-pound state champ. And part of the reason why we’re doing this is because I would never want this to happen to a girl, or boy, ever again. These kids have trained relentlessly, they’ve worked so hard. My daughter was dialed in in ways that are, really, freakish, and through no fault of her own she’s had this taken away from her. So I don’t ever want to see this happen again.

“And NYSPHSAA needs to know that its made a mistake here and it needs to be corrected,” Mr. Blenk added. “They can do whatever they want, what they should do and what they will do is a different story, but Lily is the rightful winner.”