DENVER >> Two losses by pinfall defined Renee Hudson’s past two meetings with Loveland’s Saydee Lussenhop, but on Saturday night during the Class 5A 110-pound girls wrestling state finals at Ball Arena, the Mead freshman forced Lussenhop to outlast her through the full six minutes.

Lussenhop scored on an escape with 50 seconds remaining in the match to seal her 1-0 victory, but the fire and raw talent that Hudson has shown in a few short months has been nothing short of remarkable. She’s just the third girl from Mead to make the state finals since the sport was first sanctioned during the 2020-21 season, behind Ashley Booth and Jenna Joseph, the latter who won the 161s title in 2021.

The true action in the match didn’t start until the third period, when Hudson tried to take Lussenhop down.

“She always does that with me. I would say that every time she wrestles me, she doesn’t really try to wrestle me. She never really has. That’s always been kind of the first period for us,” Hudson said. “I’m really proud of going all six minutes with her. Learning from (past meetings), I definitely figured that going bottom for me isn’t the best because she’s originally a 115.”

Hudson has just been another cog in that machine that has been Top Team Wrestling, a club team based out of Mead and run by Mead High School boys assistant coach Leister Bowling III. The club was the driving force behind the Maverick boys’ state championship berth in 2024.

“She’s been wrestling with us since she was like 6 years old,” Bowling said. “I’ve always known she’s got a bright future. She’s a very hard worker. She hates losing, and when you combine the two of those, you’re just going to do nothing but get better. This is just the beginning for her. She’s going to have a bright future, and it’s going to take her into college wrestling and international competition. As long as she sticks with that same fire that she has that got her to this point, it’s going to take her very far.”

Hudson credited her girls team’s coaches — led by Rachel Salaz — for creating the type of camaraderie that has helped her flourish in her first year with the Mavericks. She finished her season with a 38-6 record, and her debut at Ball Arena was just one point short of reaching the pinnacle of success on the high school stage.

And she still has three years to go.

“I would say that losing this is definitely going to make me want to go out in the summer and try harder,” Hudson said, adding that Top Team’s success comes from “how hard we work and how much dedication and how much we have to trust those coaches. Leister himself is making us do hard conditioning, going through mindsets and going through the motion of win or loss, going through and fixing it throughout the summer.

“I’m for sure just taking it match-by-match and not looking forward, always trying to figure out whoever’s in front of me. Even if I lose, I can be here next year, and I’m trying to get there next year and get that championship.”