Knowing she has a state medal in hand isn’t good enough for Melaine Guerrero.

The Warrenton sophomore won her first two matches at the Class 1 girls state wrestling meet on Wednesday at Mizzou Arena in Columbia, but Guerrero wants to raise the bar for herself and see just how high on the podium she can raise.

“I want to keep going, I’m not done,” Guerrero said. “I felt pretty solid today, I just have got to get better on my defense. I need to stop letting girls go tomorrow and stop letting them run over me.”

While she may have felt her opponents ‘ran over her’ on the mat, the scoreboard showed otherwise.

Guerrero opened the event in her 125-pound weight class by defeating West Platte’s Addison Bailey in 4 minutes, 18 seconds. She then won her quarterfinal match against Nevada’s Brooklynn Hoag by a 7-5 decision on the strength of two first-period takedowns.

Warrenton coach Clayton Olasson said that Guerrero pulled something out of her bag of tricks to help her earn the wins.

“She had two matches and, on paper, that last girl was probably favored to win that match,” Olsson said. “Melanie went out there and took points. She fired off a blast double, which we haven’t seen all year. She’s found confidence in it this tournament. It’s been great to watch her thrive.”

Guerrero said she’d been working on the move all year and she was ready for it to make its debut on the big stage.

“I always hit it in practice, but I’d been nervous to use it in a match,” Guerrero said. “I just wanted to go out and do my thing.”

Even though she’s guaranteed a medal, Guerrero said she’s not in Columbia to enjoy the ride.

“This is a business trip,” Guerrero said. “I’m not here to have fun. I’m here to do my best and finish the best that I can.”

The other Warren County wrestler who is already guaranteed a state medal based upon two wins on Wednesday is Wright City senior Sadie Sehnert.

Sehnert, who is not only battling her opponents but also strep throat, earned wins at 140 pounds over Alexis Lamb of St. Pius X (Festus) by fall in 1:06 and by a 10-5 decision over Kearney’s Alda Appenfeller in the quarterfinals.

“I’m really proud of her,” Wright City Coach Fred Ross said. “She didn’t wrestle her best, and she has strep throat. Wrong time of year to get that. She did what she needed to do, though. She’ll go home and get to bed tonight. She wrestles the defending state champ in the semifinals and I know she’ll give 100-percent, win or lose.”

Sehnert said she took the simplest road she could to her victories, given her condition.

“I just focused on getting points when I could,” Sehnert said. “I also wanted to play it safe when I was ahead. This feels really good because brackets keep getting harder each year, for sure.”

Sehnert said she’ll be ready to wrestle as best as she can.

“I just want to go out and do what I do best,” Sehnert said. “We’ll see what happens.”

While each school will have a wrestler earn a medal, other Warrenton wrestlers didn’t fare as well.

Meredith Donovan (105 pounds), Vivia Grooms (120) and Alli Vacek (155) each dropped their two matches.

At 135 pounds, Dakota Lohrmann won a wrestleback match, beating Windsor’s Morgan Meier by fall in 2:02 before her tournament run ended.

On the boys’ side, Wright City senior Quincy Rice earned a win in the consolation bracket.

After falling to top-seeded Madden Wolk from Ste. Genevieve by fall, he won a wrestleback over Sullivan’s Jaxson Blankenship by a 15-8 decision prior to dropping his second match of the tournament.