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Mustangs trample Badgers
UWO Women's Wrestling team take gold at Brock University Invitational Duals
Photo - University of Western Ontario - women's Wrestling Team
( Team Champions at Brock University duals - November 27, 2004 )
back row - left to right - Jill McCallum (65kg), Shannon Smart (61kg), Seren Martin (80kg), Jess Fitzgerald (70kg)
front row - left to right - Terri Mcnutt (53kg), Belinda Chou (57kg), Laura Skopelianos (48kg)
St. Catherines, Ontario CANADA, - Saturday, November 26, 2004
For a past number of years the top women's and men's wrestling teams from the Ontario University Association (OUA) would gather annually in the month of November at Brock University Invitational for head to head dual meets. This year the competing Universities were, University of Toronto, Queen's University, McMaster University, Guelph University, Lakehead University, Brock University, Niagara College (USA) and University of Western Ontario.
The UWO mustangs women's team continued their winning streak again defeating all opponents and the defending OUA champions Brock University of St. Catherines. In the head-to-head dual meet in the finals for Team gold medal , the mustangs won 6 of the 7 matches against Brock. It was a convincing superior win.
Shannon Smart sealed the team victory with a come-from-behind PIN over Brock's Lindsay McDonald in the fourth match at 61 kg. The mustangs took a commanding three match lead winning the with victories by Laura Skopelianos (48 kg), Terri McNutt (53 kg) and Belinda Chou (57 kg), all whom went undefeated at the tournament along with Jill McCallum who beat Brock's Lauren Radoja, formerly of London-Western and London Saunders S.S.
"Jess Fitzgerald wrestled well for us," said coach Ray Takahashi, "she's made some big improvements over the past few months." Fitzgerald pinned Brock's Buffy Ainsworth in the first minute of the 70 kg match.
Seren Martin, who beat Brock's Jen Hanson the week prior at the Lakehead duals, got caught with an shoulder-throw giving Brock its lone win at 80 kg. "Seren's a fighter, and she'll come back better and stronger," said Coach, Josip Mrkoci.
The mustang victory puts the mustangs women as the top team in the OUA conference and should improve their # 5 Canadian University (CIS) ranking from early November. By beating the last year's OUA women's wrestling champions Brock University twice in last two weeks, Western is in good position (baring injuries) to win the 2005 OUA championships.
The men's team placed 5th overall beating Toronto while losing to Niagara New York losing on a tie-breaker 5 matches to 5, and McMaster 3 matches to 5.
The UWO wrestling program hosts the London-Western H.S. Invitational, Saturday December 4 in Thames Hall Gymnasium. The wrestling tournament will feature London area teams as well as the top clubs and high school programs across the Province, including Windsor, Team Impact (Oshawa), Lakeshore (Mississauga), Matmen (Brampton), Khanawake (Quebec) and host London-Western.
Wrestling action starts at 9:30 am to 3:00 pm, Saturday, December 4, 2004, admission is free.
photo - Second year Science student, Jess Fitzgerald (in purple) 70 kg recorded the fastest PIN in the Western-Brock - Gold medal Team Dual
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Coyote mat men pin their way past Braves in season debut
By Sean Pitman
Sports Editor 11/28/04
Williston had a few challenges to overcome in its first outing of the wrestling season when the Coyotes hosted Belcourt Friday.
The Coyotes lost to Belcourt in a close dual last year and wanted to get off to a better start this season. Williston also is returning some experience but no real leadership from last year and the younger wrestlers had to battle some nerves.
A couple of wrestlers had to battle girls as well, but the Coyotes came through with a 46-33 win over the Braves to open the season. The dual saw 11 pins and two technical falls.
"I thought it would be close, it always seems to be with these guys (Belcourt). It always back and forth and at the start of the year there's a lot of pins between us because some of the younger guys haven't learned to fight off their back yet, but our guys were pretty solid," said Coyotes coach Chuck Michaelson.
And the girls?
"The guys know of them. They've wrestled several years. We just tell our guys to go out and approach them like a defending state champ and just wrestle. Like it or not, they went out and did the job," said Michaelson of his wrestlers.
The contests with the two girls from Belcourt ended up being key as the Coyotes held just a 35-33 lead going into the last two matches.
At 125 pounds, Aaron Roness dominated Jordan St. Germane, but couldn't get the pin winning by technical fall with a 17-1 score to secure the team win for the Coyotes with a 40-33 lead.
Kyle Kitzenberg did pin Kristen Desjarlais in 2:33, but not until after he held just a 4-3 lead.
The dual started with 135 pounds, and the Coyotes trailed 33-24 after 10 of the 14 matches.
However, Adam Lambert got the quickest pin of the day with a 47-second match at 112 pounds to get within 33-30.
"Lambert carried over his state experience from last year and you could see he had more confidence when he stepped on the matt. A lot of the guys were confident and that's what I like to see," said Michaelson.
Anthony Kueffler then dominated his match at 119 pounds with four near falls, and despite his frustration in not being able to get a pin, he did get a technical fall to take the 35-33 lead going into the last two matches.
Michaelson the key matches were at 145 and 152 pounds where the Coyotes went 1-1.
"Both of their guys are veteran wrestlers and are two of their better guys. We won one and lost one, but we wrestled well in both and both could have went either way," said Michaelson.
Shawn Sneva lost the 145-pound match with Laramie Lunday after the two traded near-falls.
Adam Stenson and Austin Desjarlais battled at 152 pounds and when it appeared Stenson was caught in the cradle, he rolled Desjarlais into the cradle instead and got the win.
Kurt Wiedrich had a dominant performance for a pin in 1:19 at 171 pounds for Williston, while Kent Hermanson opened with a pin in 1:15 at 135. Andrew Diechert got a pin at 160.
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When Sell isn’t taking down judo competitors, she wrestles
By Nate Bloomquist 11/28/04
of The Northwestern
Katie Sell doesn’t have time to quit.
The Oshkosh North junior wrestles for the Spartans and is one of the most experienced on the team. She’s a second-degree brown belt in judo, the second-highest belt, and has competed at the U.S. Open against the best young athletes in the country. When she’s not refining her technique on the mats, she plays bass in an orchestra. She has played violin for six years until this year when the orchestra needed a bassist.
“I don’t sleep until I pass out,” she joked.
Her father, George Sell, a second-degree judo black belt, got her interested in the sport.
“There are times when I’ll pick her up from wrestling practice and she’ll just grab a sandwich after wrestling practice on the way to Fond du Lac for judo practice and then she’ll work out a full practice after that,” he said. “But I never push her. She wants to do all of this.”
It would’ve been easy for her to sleep through the sports. In wrestling, she grappled with much stronger opponents and lost many matches. She’s one of four girls on the Spartans squad this season, but for much of her wrestling career, she was the only one on the team.
But for every time she was pinned, she was quick to rise up and try again.
Judo wrestles with her mind. It requires extreme concentration and demands that she be flexible. Her opponents try to use her strengths against her. If she’s pushing forward, they’ll push her farther than she’d like to go. Her judo foes try to make her stumble.
So far, she hasn’t.
By competing in the U.S. Open, she accomplished a goal most young judo athletes can only wish for. But she’s not satisfied with that. She has her eye on the Olympics.
“I have to work harder,” she said. “I want to dedicate myself to judo completely.”
Even if it means giving up some of her other activities.
George said she may not run track in the spring and dropped tennis this fall to refine her focus on judo.
She’s parlayed her efforts to a nationwide No. 2 ranking at Juvenile B class. She’s beaten the No. 1-ranked girl twice, but hasn’t scored enough points in tournaments to take her spot in the rankings. She’s ranked No. 3 in the International Judo Federation junior class. She finished fifth at the junior nationals tournament to earn a bid to the U.S. Open. In the senior elite women class, she’s tied for seventh. In wrestling, she won the girls state tournament last year in her weight class.
But Katie nearly quit before she would see success.
George showed Katie how to perform judo when she was in grade school, but she quit because she didn’t want to hurt anyone. Her mother encouraged her to learn a martial art when she was in middle school to defend herself. Katie and judo have been one in the same ever since.
She began wrestling shortly after restarting judo because the skill sets overlap.
“She surprised us completely when she started the wrestling,” George said. “She came home one day and had this form to sign and said it’s for wrestling. It has improved her judo tremendously.”
For as much as her wrestling helps judo, it has helped the Oshkosh North wrestling program.
“She’s really aggressive,” Oshkosh North assistant wrestling coach Mike Hunter said. “She knows where her hips are and her leverage points. She’s probably one of the toughest that I’ve had the opportunity to coach. She wants to learn and wants to get better.”
And she can hold her own against some of the best wrestlers in the Fox Valley Association.
“She’s extremely tough,” North wrestling coach Gary Westerman said. “I hate to use a cliche for a girl, but she’s as tough as any of the guys. If she’s injured or roughed up she takes it with a grain of salt, it doesn’t bother her.”
While she was always tough minded, she didn’t have the confidence to back it up. Wrestling and judo give her the fortitude to be a leader at North, someone other girls look up to.
“Before I used to be really shy,” she said. “But you have to be really aggressive and not give up. That’s the only way you’re going to get better.”
Even if she doesn’t make the Olympics, Sell said she won’t give up judo. The sport has taken her across the country and will take her around the world, as she’ll travel to Japan this summer. She could earn a judo scholarship at a university, however there are few U.S. schools with judo teams.
“It’s not a real economically supported sport,” George said. “For example there’s more people doing judo in Paris, France, than in the U.S.”
The sport was derived from jujitsu, the art of crippling and maiming. The marital art evolved into a sport in the last three centuries. The sport also includes a philosophy toward life, George said. It’s that aspect of it that has kept him involved in it for more than 34 years and will likely keep Katie, who George said has already accomplished more than he has, in tow.
“There’s so many things to like about judo,” she said. “I love it because it’s a family atmosphere, there’s no anger toward each other. It teaches so many principles and life lessons. No one’s there to hurt you, no one’s being rude. We’re all there to help each other.”
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Major Title IX case goes to Supreme Court
By JAMES W. BROSNAN
Scripps Howard News Service
November 29, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday about whether coaches of girls' sports teams can gripe about second-class treatment from their schools without fear of losing their jobs.
The case of Roderick Jackson v. the Birmingham (Ala.) Board of Education is considered a major test of the reach of the Title IX law that bars sex discrimination at schools receiving federal funds.
Supporters have credited the 32-year-old law with the rise of women's athletics across the country. Critics say the law forces school administrators to divert too much money from some boys' sports to girls' sports.
Jackson, 39, a teacher, was fired from his secondary job as girls' basketball coach at Birmingham's Ensley High School in 2001 after repeatedly complaining that his team didn't get a cut of ticket sales or concessions, a school bus to travel to games or enough practice time in the school gym. He sued and was reinstated as "acting coach" last year but still is seeking about $6,000 in lost back pay.
"I really thought we would handle it all internally and move on," said Jackson.
Instead, his case became a major Title IX case when first the federal district court and then the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress didn't explicitly cover school "retaliation" against coaches under the law and that a coach wasn't entitled to sue over discrimination against his team.
The case pits some unusual allies against unusual foes.
On Jackson's side is a Justice Department lawyer, Irving Gornstein, arguing alongside liberal attorney Walter Dellinger, who represents Jackson and the National Women's Law Center, a group that has accused the Bush administration of "rolling back women's progress in every aspect of their lives."
Among the groups that have filed "friend-of-the-court" briefs on Jackson's behalf are other frequent administration critics like the National Education Association, the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Arguing alongside Birmingham school board attorney Kenneth Thomas will be Alabama Solicitor General Kevin Newsom, who filed a brief for Alabama and eight other states: Delaware, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
Their "friend-of-the court" allies include the National School Boards Association, the National Wrestling Coaches Association and two conservative groups, the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Eagle Forum.
"So far, this is probably the biggest case of the term," said Eagle Forum counsel Andrew Schlafly, whose brief blamed Title IX for a poor harvest of medals for U. S. men at the Olympics this year.
Jocelyn Samuels, vice president for education and employment at the National Women's Law Center, said, "It's a very important case. I think it is a very significant one for effective enforcement of Title IX and a host of other civil rights laws."
Dellinger and the Justice Department argue retaliation isn't mentioned in the laws barring discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicity, disability or age. But Congress clearly intended to bar retaliation so that individuals would feel free to help enforce the law, the Justice Department maintains.
School board defenders warn that interpretation will bring down a flood of lawsuits or make it impossible to change coaches without fear of being sued.