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Bad Girlz prove that wrestling isn't just for boys

Story by Matt Schuman
March 16, 2004

Eaton's Dakota Duncan always wanted to wrestle. Her father, Johnny, a former high school wrestler, got her interested in the sport. She just never thought she'd be able to do it.

"I wouldn't have pictured girls wrestling," Duncan said.

That was until a few months ago when her friend Samantha Fuentes showed her that girls can wrestle. Now Duncan's on the mat just like her father was and loving every minute of it.

Duncan and Fuentes, an 11-year-old La Salle resident, are members of the Colorado Bad Girlz wrestling

club out of Windsor. The club is made up of kindergarten through high school girls from throughout northern Colorado.

On March 6, the Bad Girlz showed just how good they are as 13 members of the team placed in the third annual United State Girls Wrestling Association tournament at Montbello High School in Denver.

The girls on the team are part of a growing number of girls who are getting into the sport. According to the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association, the number of girls in high school wrestling has increased 200 percent from five years ago.

This summer, women's wrestling will be a medal sport at the Olympics.

"It's considered a boys sport, but the girls can do whatever the boys can do," Fuentes said.

Even so, Duncan and her teammates know wrestling has a long way to go to gain acceptance as a girls sport, not only with boys, but with their female peers.

"At first when I tell them (I wrestle), they don't believe me, because at my school, they don't have a girls team, just a boys team," Duncan said. "And we have only one girl in our whole school that wrestles."

The Colorado Bad Girlz realize the sport will gain more acceptance as more girls realize they can compete. Duncan didn't realize it until she began watching her team practice.

It helped her decide to give wrestling a try.

"Just watching other people do it inspired me to do it," Duncan said. "I didn't know there was a girls team and I wanted to wrestle, so it was cool."

Duncan's teammate Brandi Moser, 10, of La Salle plays softball, volleyball and basketball, but she likes wrestling the best.

However, when she talks to her friends about wrestling, they aren't as interested in learning about it.

"I don't think they really like it because they like other sports, and they think it is a boys sport," Moser said.

Colorado Bad Girlz coach Victor Fuentes started the club last year with only eight members and now has 14 girls on the team. He believes the number of girls who wrestle will increase as the sport gains attention.

"I've seen it grow more and more," he said. "It depends on how much you push it. It's how much you expose the girls to it and push the sport. Then you'll get more girls into it."

Until more girls get into the sport, it makes it difficult for the Colorado Bad Girlz to find girls to wrestle against. The number of tournaments for girls are limited and often draw a small number of competitors.

At some tournaments, the girls even have to wrestle against boys just to compete.

However, 10-year-old Jayla Garcia of Greeley and her sister Antonia, 13, don't mind wrestling the boys. In fact, they think it's fun -- especially when they win.

But most of the girls would rather wrestle against their own sex.

"I wish there were more girls wrestling in high school," said Allison Kendrick, a 15-year-old freshman at Greeley West High School who would like to see girls wrestling be a sanctioned sport. "But there aren't as many as I thought there would be."

Still, 10-year-old Ashley Ray of La Salle believes that will change once girls realize what she already has learned.

"It's not just a boys sport, it's a girls sport, too," Ray said.

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OLYMPIC NOTEBOOK: Wong big on making U.S. wrestling team

BY SEAN JENSEN 3/14/04

Pioneer Press

Jenny Wong aspires to be an Olympic champion, and she seemingly is on track to make her Olympic debut when women's wrestling competes this summer at the Games in Athens, Greece.

The Woodbury High graduate is the top-ranking American in her weight class, 51 kilograms (112.25 pounds), and her credentials, which include a bronze medal at the 2003 world championships, are long and impressive.

There's only one problem: Her weight isn't among the four Olympic classes.

That means Wong has to cut weight, down to 105.5 pounds, or add weight, to 121. She has opted for the latter, a decision that has been difficult professionally and personally.

"Being a girl," Wong said, "it's hard to get into the mind-set of wanting to get bigger. Just because we're athletes doesn't mean we're immune to that."

But Wong, 22, comforted herself with some perspective.

"When a woman gets pregnant, her body gets bigger, but her body will do something cool for her," she said. "I'm getting bigger, and my body is doing something cool for me."

"Cool" would be winning an Olympic gold medal.

But Wong has much to overcome.

She lifts heavy weights nearly twice as often as her peers in hopes of adding muscle, and she gets to eat plenty. But Wong, who is 5 feet 1, hasn't been able to get her training weight above 129 pounds, far below most of her competitors, some of whom peak close to 140.

And although she has been training at 121 pounds since November, Wong hasn't fully acclimated yet.

"She's getting adjusted wrestling bigger people," national coach Terry Steiner said, "but she's adjusted pretty well.

"She has great flexibility, which poses problems for people. It's hard to find someone with so much flexibility. Opponents don't know how to wrestle her."

Steiner admires Wong's work ethic and her commitment.

Likewise, Wong appreciates all that Steiner has done for her and her teammates.

"Coach Steiner has helped the whole program so much," said Wong, who trains full time at the team's residents program in Colorado Springs and takes classes at the University of Colorado branch there. "We were kind of afterthoughts before (2002). But he does everything in his power to make sure we're the best wrestlers that we can be."

The women's national team finished 11th at the 2002 world championships in Greece. At the 2003 world championships, with Steiner fully on board, the team lost the championship to Japan in a tiebreaker.

Steiner has depth at each of the four weight classes.

"Jenny is right around four or five," he said. "But there are about six or seven girls at that weight, where there's not a lot of difference. On any given day, any of those athletes can make the team."

Case in point: Wong recently lost by one point to former Minnesota-Morris wrestler Tina George, who is ranked No. 1 in the United States at 121 pounds. She also went to overtime against No. 2-ranked Tela O'Donnell.

"A lot of people consider me a long shot," Wong said, "But I don't consider myself one."

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Vermont wrestlers win regional titles

3/16/04

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Three Vermonters won titles over the weekend at the second annual U.S. Girls Wrestling Association New England Championships.

Mount Abraham's Courtney Martell won the 120-pound weight class; and Harwood's Casey Moulton took the 106-pound class in the high school division. Champlain Valley's Tasha Manchester finished fourth in the 140-pound class.

Erin Clodgo of Richmond won the 130-pound class for the middle school division.

Each wrestler has qualified for the U.S. National Championships on March 27-28 at Lake Orion, Mich

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Taylor lands sixth-place medal at IKWF state meet

By Kevin Hieronymus BCR Sports Editor 3/16/04

ROCKFORD -- Ty Taylor added another state medal to his family's collection by placing sixth in Saturday's Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation state finals at the Rockford Metro Centre.

Taylor wrestled in the 108-pound class of senior division, which was loaded with eight returning state medalists, and featured place matches decided by two-points or less. Taylor wrestled four of the returning medalists to gain a sixth-place finish.

On Friday, Taylor battled three-time state champ Elias Larson to a 1-0 defeat. He bounced back Saturday to defeat Ryan Lund of the Wrestling Factory 4-3 and then whipped Codee Watson of the Belvidere Bandits 15-7.

A IKWF walk-over rule allowed Larson, who had lost his semifinal by one point, to take a second victory over Taylor without the two wrestling again. Taylor moved into the fifth-place match, where he dropped a 4-2 decision on a late reversal by Matt Bochenek of the Celtics Wrestling Club.

Also qualifying for Tiger Town, but not placing were sisters Annie and T.J. Dumyahn, and Daniel Rucinski. The Dumyahns were the first set of girls from the same team to qualify for state in the same year.

Annie Dumyhan fell 8-2 to Chattman Olson of the Rockford Wrestling Club, who went on to place sixth in the 101-pound class for seniors. In juniors, T.J. Dumyahn (101 pounds) lost to Taylor Schuck of Central Wrestling Club 9-1 and Rucinski (108 pounds) fell 2-1 to Ron Galason of Panther Wrestling Club.

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Girls grapple

3/16/04

The United States Girls Wrestling Association is hosting the fifth annual Northern California championships this Saturday at Rio Linda High School.

Female wrestlers ages 5 to 18 can compete. Weigh-in and registration is at 7 a.m. to 9. The meet starts at 10.

The event will feature many of the state's top female wrestlers, including Jessica Hsieh and Kayla Chambers of Vintage. Hsieh is ranked No. 1 at 105 pounds, while Chambers is fourth at 126.

The Southern California tournament was last Saturday

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On Girl Wrestlers: Hey dudes, what’s the big deal?

Friday, December 19, 2003

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What’s a young girl to do these days? OK, I’ll dispense with any of the stereotypical notions and cut straight to the chase: Wrestle.

Excuse me, what was that?

Yes, I mean wrestling - as in that sport normally reserved for men in tights, and we’re not talking about archery a la “Robin Hood.”

Born in 1973, I have lived with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to the 1964 Civil Rights Act all my life. It’s original language reads:

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Now, the “threat” of “tomboyish” female athletes doing all those things guys do like sweating and stuff is more acceptable to the general population.

Still, wrestling is one of those sports, like football, that most people consider just for the good ol’ boys. No, not “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

On Tuesday, Los Ba'os High freshman Erma Flores earned the first pin of her prep career in a junior varsity match against Weston Ranch (Manteca).

Is a girl wrestling newsworthy in and of itself?

Is a girl beating a guy bigger news than a guy beating a guy?

“It used to be more of a stigma if a guy got beat by a girl,” coach Dan Roton said. “But, now there are some pretty good girls, and she’s one of them.”

Two years ago, I had the privilege of writing a feature piece in The San Diego Union-Tribune on Tabitha Coffey, a senior 103-pounder at Montgomery High (San Diego).

She was the second female in San Diego Section history to advance to the Masters Meet (the equivalent of sections here) thanks to a pin and seventh-place finish at the Division I Meet (subsections).

Coffey was a “normal” girl with respect to whatever it is that one considers “normal” in a girl.

There are hundreds, now thousands like her. California, by the way, actually leads the nation in female grappler volume.

The United States Girls Wrestling Association runs state tournaments across the country, and the 2002 California Championships at Crawford High in San Diego had over 180 competitors. Coffey won the 100-pound class, then took sixth at the National Tourney with a loss to Amantha Hordagoda of Sunnyvale.

At that tournament, Californians also took fourth, seventh and 10th at 100 pounds and punched five wrestlers through to the finals with two of them winning it all.

If women decide to pursue the sport collegiately, USGWA.com lists six schools where wrestling is offered as a team sport - even more have women’s wrestling as a club sport. Information can also be found at themat.com.

So get ready, wrestle!

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