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Wrestling: History in the making

With a top 4 finish, Hanson will leave mark

By Joe Slezak, The Ile Camera

PUBLISHED: February 27, 2004

Grosse Ile wrestler Kelsey Hanson is on the verge of making history.

If the senior places in the top four at 103 pounds at the Division 3 individual regional at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Williamston, she'll be the first girl in Downriver history to qualify for the state meet.

Just five girls have qualified in Michigan High School Athletic Association history, with the first in 1999 and the fifth last winter.

"She's got a great opportunity to go to states," Grosse Ile Coach Rob Beaudrie said. "It's looking nice for her."

The individual state meet for all four divisions will be March 11-13 at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

Hanson will be one of five Grosse Ile wrestlers at the regional after the quintet placed in the top four in their respective weight classes at Saturday's individual district at Highland Park.

"I'm very happy with the whole situation," Beaudrie said. "The whole team wrestled well. The overall day was just outstanding."

Hanson, Larry Mazzola (152) and Chris Toulouse (171) were second, Larry Bohl (189) was third and Eric Schmidt (275) fourth.

"These are my cornerstone wrestlers," Beaudrie said.

Bohl (26-14) got to the regional despite being just a sophomore; the rest are seniors. Mazzola (17-7) advanced despite being in the lineup for just the last month after being sidelined with a broken elbow.

"I knew Eric Schmidt had a tough weight class," Beaudrie said. "I was happy he got fourth.

"Chris is working harder than anyone on the team."

The placers saw plenty of Huron League champion Huron at the district. In the final at 103, Hanson lost an 18-3 technical fall to Huron's Andrew Novak. She's 31-10 on the season, including 0-4 against Novak. In the final at 171, Toulouse (34-5) lost 9-0

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Lampe on path toward history

By Jacey Zembal 2/21/04
Wausau Daily Herald
jzembal@wdhprint.com

TOMAHAWK - Tomahawk High School sophomore Alyssa Lampe is one of three girls who have qualified for the WIAA wrestling sectionals, a feat which has never happened before in Wisconsin.

Lampe joins Dodgeland's Amberlee Ebert (13-7) and De Soto's Aubrey Audetat (25-4), who will be wrestling in the Division 3 sectionals.

Lampe (29-8) will be wrestling Cumberland's Black Cifaldi (28-7) in the 103-pound weight class today in the sectional at Amery. The meet starts at 10 a.m.

"She is a remarkable young lady," Tomahawk coach Kurt Weyers said. "She is one of the hardest working kids, boy or girl, that I've ever coached."
Lampe was runner-up for the regional title last Saturday in Medford.

"Alyssa pinned a conference champion from Bloomer just to get to sectionals, and the Bloomer coaches were shocked," Weyers said. "They kept saying, 'We heard about this girl, we heard about this girl. But we didn't believe it until we saw it first hand. She really beat our young man up and he's 30-5.'"
Lampe will have a tough road ahead of her today to reach the state meet as Mosinee's Jered Kern (32-1) and Osceola's Joe Steffen (28-0) are considered the favorites.

"She's the real deal," Weyers said. "She is extremely aggressive and sometimes that gets her in trouble, but she has one gear and that is all out.

"She's just a pleasure to coach and a pleasure to watch. She got a big standing ovation from the Medford crowd last Saturday and she deserved it."
Lampe's older brother, Anthony, will also be gunning for a chance at the state meet in the 112-pound class. The Lampes are part of seven Tomahawk wrestlers in today's sectional.

Teammate and senior leader Josh Chelf said he has a lot of respect for Alyssa Lampe's abilities.

"She just amazes me," Chelf said. "In practice, she does pushups just as good as everyone.

"She is definitely built. Her arms are big for a 103-pounder."

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Breaking a hold

Struggle not over, but girls becoming a presence in wrestling

By Heidi Pederson 2/27/04

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

When Amarillo native Tori Adams began wrestling as an 8-year-old in 1990, she was an anomaly in Texas.

As a girl wrestler whose only available competition was in boys meets, Adams said, she was treated like an alien.

In her first Texas Amateur Wrestling Association state tournament, Adams stepped onto the mat for her first match only to have the official walk off. He refused to officiate a girl's match, Adams said.

She went on to place in that tournament, and now competes on the international level. But Adams and her parents spent much of her early years in the sport waging legal battles simply to allow her to compete.

"That just motivated me," said Adams, who won four state high school girls titles.

Little did she know what she would help start. Fourteen years later, as the UIL State Wrestling Championships are scheduled for today and Saturday in Austin, Texas and Hawaii are the only two states where the governing high school organization has a girls wrestling division.

More than 1,000 Texas girls wrestle for 149 girls teams in UIL competition, which recognized boys and girls wrestling as official sports in the 1998-99 school year. In 2000, the UIL counted 104 girls teams.

"Obviously, Texas girls wrestling is very important to us, because they're putting tons of kids into the program," USA Wrestling spokesman Gary Abbott said. "Any of these kids might go on to become world or Olympic team members."

About 7,000 women compete in the sport in the United States, according to USA Wrestling, with about 4,500 of those competing on the high school level. Six women's varsity programs exist on the collegiate level, and women train with several U.S. men's collegiate teams. Women's wrestling will be a medal sport at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

In Texas, the level of girls wrestling improves every year.

"What you're seeing is a lot more technique with the girls," Trinity wrestling coach Kelsy Lynes said. "They're shooting singles and doubles, and stepping through. It's exciting."

Programs have improved too -- several schools' girls teams now have their own coach and funding, separate from the boys program. But while support and acceptance of girls wrestling has grown, coaches and competitors say, changes are still needed.

Those involved in the sport said one struggle is getting more girls involved. In girls wrestling hotbeds, such as Arlington and Amarillo, schools typically have 20 girls on a team. Frisco coach Chuck Brown, formerly coach at L.D. Bell, and Frisco Centennial coach Mike Eaton have started to build potentially large girls programs.

Other teams struggle to field five girls, even when coaches actively recruit. Colleyville Heritage girls coach David Gerdes, for example, had four girls, all seniors, last year. This year, he said, he was not able to convince any girl to finish the season.

South Grand Prairie junior Crystal Molinar, one of six girls on the Warriors roster, said not all coaches are so enthusiastic. She said many girls only get 20 matches per season, while boys get about 40 to 50 matches.

"If your coach loves the sport, it makes you want to come back," Molinar said. "If you don't have a lot of support, there's no motivation.

"I get barely enough money to support the boys team, and it's that way at a lot of schools," Lynes said. "That's not enough money to run a good girls program."

Girls coaches such as Brown said that some UIL rules prevent improvement. Brown said rules that prohibit male coaches from practicing with female wrestlers and ones that prohibit girls and boys from practicing against each other need to be changed.

"That's the dumbest rule in history. I can't just tell a kid to put their leg here or put their arm there," he said. "I have to show it, show them where their opponent is going to be. I'm dealing with kids who have never wrestled before."

Despite the shortcomings, all of those interviewed said they are pleasantly surprised at the way girls wrestling has grown since its first days in the state.

Adams, now a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a member of the U.S. women's national wrestling team, expects it to grow even more.

"I had no idea it was going to end up like this," she said. "It's amazing."

UIL Wrestling State Championships

Today-Saturday, Austin Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 5

Tickets: $10 adults, $5 students per day. All-tournament pass: $18.

Wrestling with numbers

The number of female wrestlers at some area schools

20 Sam Houston

20 Arlington

22 Lamar

1 Martin

6 SGP

3 Trinity

7 L.D. Bell

3 Fossil Ridge

1 Grapevine

0 Coll. Heritage

4 Carroll

10 Frisco

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Sports Profile: Katy High School wrestling team

2/26/2004 5:27 PM
By: Kevin Holden

It's no surprise that Katy High School is well represented at this weekend's state wrestling tournament.

Seven Katy wrestlers have a chance at winning state titles, including defending champ James Aston.

"I really want it bad," said Aston. "It'd be nice to repeat in wrestling, and I can see it happening if I just stay focused and do what I always do. I can see another repeat, so it'd be nice."

Katy's football team won a state title with Aston at running back.

Now, the school's athletic tradition goes to the wrestling mat, where five young women can win state wrestling championships this weekend.

"Well, they make it very clear that they're not going to waste their time on people that don't want to work, so if you come out to be an athlete at Katy, just be ready to work," said wrestler Teri Lopez.

"The second year we had two state champions -- a boy and a girl, and then we've had another girl win state, and she's gone on nationally and gone into competitive collegiate wrestling. And now James has kind of taken that torch and run with it," said Wrestling Coach Tim Ripperger.

"Every sport you go into, you have a coach pushing you in one way or another to keep the tradition up, and keep winning state titles and keep the team [as] the top team in the state, so it's real nice in every sport you go into," said Aston.

So will it be the gridiron or the mat in college?

"I think Iowa said you can do both -- they allow it. So it depends on what the best offer is," said Aston.

For now, all of Katy's hopefuls are focused on this weekend.

"The kids have been great. I can't ask any more of them, and they're a solid group. And so we hope to push as many as we can through state," said Coach Ripperger.

The UIL State Wrestling Tournament is Friday and Saturday at the Austin Convention Center.

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All grown up
Lee's wrestlers know their way around the mat and the map

By MK BOWER
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle 2/26/04

Lee coach John Vogt communicates through anecdotes, and no story better reflects the rise of his girls wrestling program than the one he shared before Thursday's practice.

As Jade Prudent, Maria Salas and Carmen Ramos readied themselves for the state wrestling championship this weekend in Austin, Vogt recalled the day two years ago when a trip to Katy for a meet morphed into a journey to the other side of the world.

After 30 minutes on the bus, wrestlers wondered aloud if the drive would ever cease and parents questioned the proximity of Katy to the intersection of Richmond and Hillcroft.

In contrast, Lee has competed this season in Frisco, Arlington, Bryan and San Antonio with nary an eyebrow raised. And when the Generals enter the building, their reputation precedes them.

"We got in, not on the ground floor, but we got in (during) the sophomore season," Vogt said of his four-year program. "(Opponents) had girls wrestling for two years before we started at Lee. (Now), when our girls come into a gymnasium, they know we are there."

The transition from an upstart program is a story of hard work and overcoming adversity.

After placing 10th at state last year, Vogt lost several wrestlers with experience at the state meet to a variety of mishaps. But instead of regressing, the Generals have the potential to earn more points at state this season than ever before.

It starts with Prudent, the Region IV champion at 138 pounds. Her bouts with Katy's Teri Lopez have literally stopped traffic, and she enters this weekend as a co-favorite -- along with Lopez -- to bring home the gold.

Such expectations seem laughable to Prudent. She remembers well when she and her teammates were mired at the bottom rung of the talent ladder.

"It's cool because you go and see all the new girls and think, `Hey, I used to be like that,' " Prudent said. "Now you're the top person and you wrestle really well, and everybody is trying to beat you but they can't."

Prudent (27-5 on the season) has been on a roll since the turn of the year, winning five meets, including one at Arlington Lamar where she was named most outstanding wrestler. Those grueling moments in practice tested the will of the Generals, but this season they reaped the benefits of their commitment to the program and to one another.

Salas (24-4), who finished second at regionals at 102 pounds, has enjoyed the change in perception as well. She wrestled above her weight when she competed as a freshman, and while she encountered her share of setbacks, those moments toughened her resolve.

"It was really frustrating because we hardly knew anything. We would always lose," Salas said. "Now, with the years we have been in wrestling, it's so much better because we finally win. And when you win it's so cool because you worked for it.

"It's gratifying because we worked really, really hard. We come every morning for 7 o'clock practice, lift weights, run, and then we still have practice in the afternoon. And to see us win as a group and win trophies for our team, all of that stuff counts (for) a lot."

Vogt fully expects Prudent to medal and believes Salas, another five-time winner this year, has the potential to compete for some hardware.

"There are 80 girls wrestling in this tournament; we have been on the mat with 62 of them," Vogt said of the state meet. "We have been to virtually every corner of the state. We have wrestled the Amarillo girls, the Arlington girls (and) the Dallas girls ... Austin, San Antonio (and) Houston. We know what they do and what they do to us, and what worked on them the last time. It's a tremendous advantage to be well-traveled."

Since they are well-traveled, the Generals are well-known.

"When they see the Lee girls come to a tournament, they are scared," Salas said. "Now we have a reputation of being good wrestlers."

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Boys talk trash before she enters the ring, but not after

By JOANNE KIMBERLIN, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 27, 2004

SMITHFIELD — Forehead to forehead, the wrestlers circle, hands darting in search of their opening grip.

The one from Poquoson looks like any other 119-pound high-school wrestler – a wiry boy budding into a man.

The wrestler from Smithfield is shaped more like an hourglass, with long, curly hair shoved under a swim cap. It’s a girl budding into a woman.

They crouch, they grapple, they shoot for a hold on a leg. Toppling to the mat, each scrambles for dominance, faces contorted with the strain.

She thrashes to the top, and the spectators roar. She uses her forearm to grind his face into the mat.

When the match is over – six intense minutes later – the referee yanks the girl’s hand up in victory.

The boy stalks off to the locker room in tears.

“Oooh,” says one spectator. “Joe’s momma’s going to be mad that he lost to a girl.”

It’s no big deal that Warry Woodard wrestles boys. There are girls on a handful of other high-school teams.

The big deal is that Warry actually wins.

Warry (pronounced War-uh) is 16 years old, 5-foot-3 and cheerleader-cute. She’s wrapping up her second year as the only girl on Smithfield’s varsity wrestling team. Her regular-season record of 13-7 means Warry wins more than she loses. She’s a team captain, a rarity for a junior. And outside of school, when she wrestles in a national girls’ association, Warry is ranked third in the country in her weight class.

She credits her success – at least in part – to her family.

“I’ve got seven brothers,” Warry said. “It makes you kind of tough.”

Tough enough to endure stinging mat burns, sprained joints and occasional broken bones. Tough enough to square off with a muscle-cut boy desperate to win. Tough enough to deal with the ridicule that comes with it.

David Robinson, Warry’s first coach, met her in a local youth wrestling league. He remembers an 8-year-old girl who got bored with watching her brothers wrestle and decided to try it herself.

After years of losses, Warry learned to use balance, endurance and plain skill to combat the boys’ superior strength. Nowadays, even when she loses, she’s rarely pinned – the position most familiar to the few females who have braved this sport before.

Robinson has watched reaction to Warry evolve. He’s seen coaches snub her, spectators boo her and boys make fun of her.

He recalls one match where a boy called Warry a nasty name on the mat.

“She snatched him up and pinned him about five seconds later,” Robinson said. Then Warry stood up, wagged a finger and advised her opponent to watch his mouth. “They talk trash before she wrestles,” Robinson said. “But they don’t after.”

If wrestling can be painful for Warry, facing her can be excruciating for the boys.

None wants to grapple with a girl – at least not in a gym full of spectators. With moves like the “crotch lift,” they worry about where to put their hands. Some worry about injuring her. All worry about losing to her.

“It’s a no-win for us,” said Justin Cooper, a 119-pounder from Grafton High in Yorktown. “If you lose, you don’t even want to go to school on Monday. If you win, well, all you’ve done is beat a girl.”

At one recent meet, Jamestown’s Darrin Davila was dripping sweat and gulping for air after a see-saw match with Warry. Darrin wound up winning narrowly by points, but he couldn’t force her shoulders to the mat.

“I thought she was going to be easy,” Darrin puffed, “but she’s got all my respect now. She was like my toughest match yet.”

Darrin’s dad, Hector, released a sigh of relief.

“She almost handed your butt to you, boy,” Hector told his son. “And I gotta tell you. If you lost, I was going to head out that door and pretend I wasn’t your father.”

Such high stakes make some boys refuse to wrestle her. At one tournament this season, after Warry pinned three boys in a row, the fourth forfeited.

“I’m guessing his coach was worried about his self-confidence,” said Smithfield coach Tyler Mosley.

Other boys, offended by her presence, “amp up the aggression,” Mosley said. “They don’t think she belongs out there, so they actually try to rough her up to make their point.”

It usually ends up backfiring. “They become unfocused and she takes advantage of it,” Mosley said. “If she can withstand their initial onslaught, she can win.”

Crying is common among the wrestlers after any losing match. Guys shed tears regularly after a defeat from Warry.

“In a way, I feel bad for them,” she said. “I know they’re thinking, 'Man, I just lost to a girl.’”

But Warry knows the disappointment herself. When she’s not wrestling boys, she competes against her own gender in the United States Girls’ Wrestling Association.

“When I lose there,” she said, “I think the same thing. 'Man, I just lost to a girl.’”

It doesn’t happen often, though the girls’ association is no joke. With roughly 4,000 members, the organization’s tournaments attract experienced competitors from places such as Hawaii and Texas, states that, unlike Virginia, have high-school girls wrestling programs.

Honing her skills on boys, however, has given Warry the edge to win top USGWA titles in Virginia, Maryland and Georgia and at the Colonial States regional meet and national competitions.

“She’s a tough little monkey,” said USGWA director Kent Bailo.

If boys feel weird tangling with her, Warry suffers no such qualms about them.

“I don’t see myself as a girl when I’m out there,” she said. “I see myself as a wrestler.”

So does her coach.

“I expect her to go out there and stalk the win,” Mosley said, “just like everyone else.”

One drop of estrogen amid so much testosterone does require adjustments. Fretting about every extra ounce, boys line up naked to weigh in before a meet. Warry, dressed in a sports bra and shorts, weighs in alone.

Her hair, a waist-length cascade of dark curls, must be tucked under a Latex swim cap, which needs constant adjustment. She’d like to cut it, but her mother says no.

Other than that, Warry’s parents leave her wrestling life alone.

“I care about her, and I worry about her,” said her mother, Becky Batchelor. “But that’s hers out there. If she gets hurt, then it’s a life lesson for her.”

Warry said she learned long ago to “get up.”

“My mom never let us feel sorry for ourselves. And I’ve had a lot of good coaches who wouldn’t either.”

Her teammates are her favorite part of wrestling.

“We hang out together, we pick on each other, we comfort each other,” she said, “just like a big family.”

Daniel Hare, Smithfield’s 171-pounder, said the team considers Warry one of the boys. “She works just as hard as we do,” he said.

Maybe harder. After weight-lifting, running and surviving an exercise routine called the “Death Valley,” Warry leaves her school practice and heads to a workout with a youth wrestling league in Newport News.

In the off season, she runs cross-country and track.

“I’ve got to work harder than the boys just to be where they are,” she said.

Time is not on her side.

With each year, the boys grow stronger. She grows curvier.

And while no one would mistake her for a girly-girl, she is interested in girl stuff, such as shopping for clothes, going to the movies, dating boys. “No one ever asks me out, though,” she said. “One of my teammates told me most guys are intimidated by me.”

She wonders if girls are, too.

“Everybody pushes through the halls to get to class, but nobody pushes me,” she said. “I don’t think they think I can beat them up. I’m not sure what it is.”

She hopes she’s done growing. Competing at the same weight is important for next year. One weight class higher, the boys are more like “little men,” as one coach put it, powerful enough to slam Warry to the mat and keep her there.

But if she can hold her own as a senior, she might land a scholarship to one of the half-dozen colleges that now field women’s wrestling teams.

With nine kids in her family, a scholarship is crucial.

College could open a road to the Olympics. This summer in Athens, for the first time ever, women’s wrestling will be part of the games.

The right mind-set, Warry believes, will get her there someday.

“Sometimes I find myself thinking, 'How can I possibly beat this boy? He knows more than me and he’s stronger.’ But you’ve got to overcome that.”

It doesn’t always work. Last year, she finished fifth in her weight class among the 10 AA schools in her district. At this year’s districts, held last week, she was eliminated after losing two matches on points.

Thanks to a fluke, Warry has another shot. A reorganization of AA schools is allowing all wrestlers to compete at regionals this year – regardless of their performance at districts.

The two-day regional tournament, held at Tabb High School in Yorktown, begins this morning.

A win at regionals takes a wrestler to the state tournament. Only one girl has ever made it there before – a Roanoke-area girl who’d never won a high-school match, but qualified because of a quirk in her region. She was quickly eliminated.

The odds are against Warry, too. She refuses to do the math.

“You have to know what’s inside you and go out there thinking like a winner.”

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Fossil Ridge wrestler excels after taking a year off

03:46 AM CST on Friday, February 27, 2004
By RICK KRETZSCHMAR / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Physically, Emmy Thompson was not part of the Fossil Ridge wrestling program for the 2002-03 school year.

Mentally, however, Thompson never left.

"Every single day I thought about it. It was mental exercise. I would think about what shots [wrestling moves] I would do," Thompson said. "Sometimes I would dream about it. During the day, I would daydream about it, during English class."

This school year, Thompson returned to wrestling and didn't miss a beat. The senior was 31-2 and qualified for this weekend's UIL State Wrestling Championships at 148 pounds. She also qualified for state in her freshman and sophomore years.

Thompson said she didn't wrestle in 2002-03 in order to focus on academics and for economic reasons. In her year off, Thompson worked several jobs, including at a department store and a coffee shop.

Thompson said she scored a 1,300 on the SAT and a 27 on the ACT. She is attempting to enter the United States Naval Academy.

Fossil Ridge coach Clint Wood was surprised and disappointed that Thompson didn't wrestle in 2002-03. Thompson made her decision to return while watching the District 10 meet last season.

"I saw a Colleyville Heritage girl with a gold medal at 138 pounds. I thought, 'It's mine,' " Thompson said. "I decided I was coming back, whether I had a job or not."

Thompson said her wrestling success is because of Wood's patient coaching style. Thompson didn't start wrestling until she was a freshman at Fossil Ridge.

Thompson remained in shape in the off-season, continuing to run with Fossil Ridge's cross country team. She was worried because she was moving up to the 148-pound weight class, and she also had a history of injuries. A right ankle sprain, a dislocated bone in her right hand and shin splints hampered her during her sophomore year.

Wood said the layoff didn't hurt Thompson much.

"She needed a couple weeks to get moves back, but that was about it," Wood said. "She's always been very aggressive."

Wood wanted to enter his girls team in as many events as possible, including two tournaments in Arlington and another in Frisco. Thompson responded with the best record of any 148-pound state qualifier.

Fossil Ridge wrestler Maria Wisener said Thompson was also a team leader this season. Wisener will compete at state in the 95-pound class.

"I had to teach everyone on the girls team. It was great to have her back," Wisener said. "Physically, she is the same she was two years ago."

Thompson is still looking for something she couldn't get in the past – a state tournament victory. She is 0-4 in her previous appearances at state.

Still, Thompson has no regrets, including taking a year off from wrestling.

"I wouldn't change anything. Last year, I imagined myself wrestling no-face girls. They would be really good and really strong, but they didn't have faces," Thompson said. "Last year, I got mentally ready for what I would do at state this year."