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SAGE : WNO

By Josh Jensen, 09/28/20, 10:00AM MDT

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Sage Mortimer: Utah’s Quintessential Female Wrestler Competing at WNO

On October 3, Sage Mortimer will look to cement herself as one of the best pound-for-pound high school female wrestlers in the country. She will step on the mat to compete in FloWrestling’s massive Who’s Number One (WNO) event that features the most elite high school wrestlers in the nation. Mortimer is the first girl from Utah to compete in the event and only the second Utahn to earn the opportunity since Taylor LaMont’s WNO appearance back in 2015. Sage solidified her status as the best in her weight class by winning two stop signs in Fargo and making a world team in 2019. She is currently ranked number one at 100 pounds in a recent set of rankings.  Her opponent, Mia Palumbo of Illinois is a fellow Fargo double champion and currently holds the number one ranking at 106 pounds. Their WNO match will take place at 112 pounds. Sage is a fierce competitor and a fantastic technician. In this piece, we study a few facets of her deep technical arsenal. 

Prolific Throws and Throw Defense

Wrestlers that come through Champions Wrestling Club often have prolific underhook offense. Sage Mortimer isn’t an exception to this. From the opening whistle, she looks to get her hands on opponents and start to snap their heads to tire their necks and backs. She will club with one hand and punch into an underhook with the other hand and begin applying pressure toward the edge to set up throws similar to the way we’ve seen one of her coaches, Taylor LaMont do over the years. 

 

When competing in freestyle, this method of pressuring has multiple advantages. In freestyle, there’s greater incentive for the wrestler with their back to the edge to either circle their back toward the middle or hold position if they don’t have to give away a free point for a step out. This incentive allows Sage to score with some brilliant upper-body attacks. She will press her opponent to the edge with her underhook and a very high percentage of the time, her opponent will look to dig an underhook of her own to create an over-under situation. From this over-under position, Sage will slide her overhook all the way over her opponent’s shoulder to clasp her hands and trap the arm with the head. From there, she takes a short step, rotates her hip into her opponent and looks to yank them over that hip to complete the throw as shown below:

 

  1. Apply pressure with underhook

  2. Bring over hook up and around 

  3. Clasp hands

  4. Rotate hip inside and pull the head through to complete throw

Sage can headlock just about anyone but she’s also extremely comfortable in any upper-body exchange. This is due in large part to her willingness to compete in greco despite girls greco not being much of an option at this time. She maintains great position and understands the core concept of throwing and not getting thrown which is keeping her hips in front of the opponent’s. The best example to illustrate this concept is headlock defense. Some wrestlers will be in a match and realize their opposition is attempting to headlock and they’ll look to circle all the way behind their opponent (stomach to back) which can sometimes just load them into their opponent’s hips and make the job of the thrower far easier. It’s a tempting maneuver because circling around to the opponent’s back looks so open. However, the safer method of defense that Sage uses is to step in front and use the opponent’s headlock attempt to load her own hips for a hip-toss: 

 

  1. Opponent commits to right-handed headlock 

  2. Underhook slides into a seatbelt

  3. Left leg steps between the feet into hip-toss position

  4. Complete the hip-toss 

Low Singles and Shot Counters

Sage can score a lot of points with her upper body technique as we’ve clearly seen but she also has awesome shot offense and shot defense/counter offense. Sage’s heavy hand fighting style triggers a fight or flight response from opponents. She is aggressive in tie ups and a big problem in upper body positions. Due to those aspects of her style, opponents will often do one of two things. They’ll either shoot just to avoid being in underhooks and/or getting snapped down or they’ll try to keep her at a distance. Sage has shown the ability to turn either of those responses into scoring situations. When opponents shoot, she does a great job of getting her arms in the way. She will downblock with both arms to create a wedge between herself and the opponent and jump her hips back and down into a great sprawl position where she immediately starts to chase hamstrings for go behinds where she does a great job of transitioning into gut wrenches and leg laces.. 

  1. Make the read on the level change 

  2. Downblock with both arms and sprawl 

  3. Chase the go behind and trap the arm

  4. Score with trap arm gut wrench 

Mortimer has great offense in the open. She has great timing combined with quickness that is tough to match and uses these attributes to hit beautiful low singles. The wrestlers who have the most success with low singles are the ones that draw out the leg of their opponents that they want to attack.

 

This can be accomplished by initiating hard hand fighting then exiting briefly only to shoot back into the low single if the opponent attempts to chase, by using fakes to force them to withdraw one leg thus opening up the other, or by feeling out their stance motion to time a step and seizing the opportunity to snatch the ankle. Sage will often opt to use timing a step from her opponents and has the speed to capitalize on a small window of opportunity to enter into the low single.

 

She is also great at quickly finishing the shot once she’s in. I’m sure someone else has said and/or noticed this before me but I’m not sure who to credit, but most leg attacks are essentially entries or setups for a double leg. A high percentage of shot finishes revolve around the concept of getting to both legs of the opponent. A “double leg” by basic definition. Sage understands this and shows a great sense of urgency to get to the other leg of her opponents on her finishes:

(Sage enters the shot by using her cross hand to make contact, brings her other hand around to get into solid position for the single leg finish. She glues her outside shoulder to her opponent’s leg, circles hard, and collects the far leg to complete the takedown)

The Gold Standard

Regardless of the result of her match at WNO, Sage Mortimer will be the gold standard for Utah girls wrestling for a long time. Her fierce competitive spirit along with the amazing technical and tactical prowess she displays on wrestling mats all over the country, and even the world is a great thing for the next generation of girl wrestlers to see to know what’s possible. Girls and womens wrestling is growing and it’s due in large part to elite competitors like Sage being catalysts for that growth. Good luck, Sage, the Utah wrestling community is proud to support you! 

 

To watch Sage compete at WNO on October 3 you’ll need to subscribe to FloWrestling’s streaming service, watch with a friend who subscribes, or steal that friend’s login credentials.