While some of their fellow male teammates were wrestling at the North Coast Section Championships Saturday, five local Humboldt-Del Norte Conference girls were more than holding their own while competing at the Girls NCS Championships at Kennedy High School in Fremont.

Ferndale’s Sarah Hubbard, wrestling at 103 pounds, finished in third place, and according to her head coach Kenny Simpson, gave the No. 1 seed from Novato, Courtney Madson, all Madson could handle before Hubbard lost by a couple of points.

“I thought that Hubbard against Madson was basically the finals match. It was a good match,” Simpson said. “Madson (ended up) advancing to the finals and won 14-3.”

Simpson added that if Hubbard had been healthy and not battling a foot injury, she may have indeed defeated Madson and won the 103-pound bracket.

“Hubbard has only been on the mat for a couple of weeks since breaking her foot a month ago,” Simpson said.

Ferndale’s other participant, Allana Gallaty, took seventh place at 108 pounds and also was very competitive, coming up just short against the eventual third-place finisher, San Leandro’s Armina Guidry, in Gallaty’s first match of the day.

“It was cool because Allana basically wrestled everyone of her own talent,” Simpson said. “She had to battle for every single point but she never got manhandled. I liked seeing her get after it like that as a wrestling coach.”

Other local girls competing included South Fork’s Kelsey Stillwell (122), who took third place, and Arcata’s Brittany Beller (108), who gave a great effort against the top seed in her bracket, Pittsburg’s Frankie Silva, according to Simpson.

Arcata’s Alesha Beller (122) also wrestled at the NCS.

This marked the end of the season for these wrestlers, as there are currently no state championships for girls.

Simpson was very proud with how all five locals performed, not only at the NCS, but throughout the wrestling season.

Simpson pointed out that because of the smaller sizes of local high schools, both Bellers, Stillwell, Gallaty and Hubbard spent most of their time wrestling against boys at varsity tournaments and were facing girls who had been competing at girls tournaments for an entire season.

This made the local girls’ efforts, and placements, all the more impressive.

“For them to get beat up by the toughest kids year after year, and never complain about it, my hats are off to all of them for that,” Simpson said.