By Dylan Reubenking / dylanr@chronline.com Lia Hornby is no stranger to the bright lights. The 2024 W.F. West High School graduate competed at Mat Classic XXXV as a senior and finished sixth despite breaking two bones in her left hand, and she won the state freestyle title in May before winning eight matches at the U.S. Marine Corps Junior and 16U Nationals. Hornby, now in her first year wrestling for the Washington State University club wrestling team, recently completed a successful debut campaign for the Cougars. She clinched the Northwest Conference championship in the 138-pound weight class to qualify for the NCWA Nationals Tournament in Shreveport, Louisiana, where she placed third and earned All-American honors in the three-day tournament. Yet Hornby isn’t satisfied with standing off to the side on the podium. She is yearning to be the last one standing next year. “It was definitely a goal [to qualify for nationals], but I was kind of surprised that I made it to the top three. I knew that I could, but I wasn’t completely expecting it as a freshman,” Hornby said. “I think if I changed two things in my semifinals match, I would have made it to the finals.” Hornby and her team had a rough start to their trip to Shreveport for nationals. A late-night flight led to a six-hour wait in the hotel lobby to check in before finally practicing in the evening to get ready for nationals matches the next day. “We had to work off the stress of traveling and get into a wrestling mindset for the next day,” Hornby said. She wrestled two matches on the first day of the tournament, the latter being the semifinals where she faced Sacramento State’s Miyuki Pugrad and lost to fall into the consolation bracket. Hornby had to regain herself after she said she “lost her conviction” following her semifinal loss, as consolation matches were held the next day. “The hardest part of the tournament was when I lost in the semifinals. That was my last match of the day, so it was kind of a sour note to end the day on. At that point, I thought I was going to make it to the finals,” she said. “It was really disappointing, and then I had to go to sleep and get up the next day and wrestle in the consolation bracket. Part of wrestling in the cons is having the fortitude to know that you’re not going to win the tournament but you still continue to wrestle.” Hornby credited her parents and teammates for being her support system during her first year wrestling. She had rarely wrestled out of state and without her parents in the crowd, but her mother Jill traveled to Pullman for the conference championships and her father Mark flew to Shreveport to watch her wrestle at nationals. “My dad made sure that I was getting rest and eating the food that I needed at nationals. I really don't think I could have gotten All-American honors without my dad there helping me,” Hornby said. Hornby said the W.F. West wrestling program deserves credit for her successful debut year wrestling at the collegiate level. “Coach [Matt] Patana is probably the best wrestling coach I’ve ever had because he’s the coach that really made me fall in love with wrestling,” she said. “The great thing about him as a coach is he teaches the basics really well so I have a really solid foundation and understanding of wrestling and I can build on that in college.” In order to achieve her goal of reaching the top of the podium at nationals next year, Hornby said she wants to focus on lifting weights and improving her stamina in the offseason by competing in as many tournaments as she can. “I’ll stay and practice over the summer so I don’t lose the progress I made this season. [Nationals] was really different from wrestling at state,” Hornby said. “It’s really tough to keep up your energy over three days, especially when you have to make weight every morning. You have to stay ready for your match all day long, so that really wears on you if you don’t know how to conserve energy properly.”