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Torres places fourth at nationals
By The Porterville Recorder staff 4/2/06
LAKE ORION, Mich. - Just when Erica Torres didn't think her season could get any better, it did.
Torres, who won the 122-pound California state title for girls in February, took her athleticism to the national level over the weekend.
And the Granite Hills High School junior didn't disappoint with a fourth-place finish in the 122-pound weight class at the United States Girls Wrestling Association National Championships at Lake Orion High School.
“I wasn't going to leave this place empty-handed,” Torres said. “I wanted to do the best I could and place in the top six.”
She did that on Sunday but on Friday, it almost didn't come to pass.
Torres was three pounds over about seven hours prior to weigh-ins. So she rode the bike for an 1 hour, 25 minutes. She was still over and went for another 10 minutes before finally reaching her goal.
“I didn't come all this way to not wrestle because I was overweight,” Torres said.
Torres went 4-2 in the tournament. She reached the semifinals before getting pinned by eventual national champion Sarah Peasley from Wisconsin.
That put her in consolations but Torres' shoulder began to flare up. Instead of forfeiting out to a possible sixth-place finish, Torres chose to wrestle and beat Kristina Koennig, the same girl she beat for the California state title.
Only this time, the match was a little easier as she won 8-0 as opposed to the 8-7 decision in February. Torres then lost her third-place match to Ohio's Shelby Shirley 5-0.
“I told coach I wasn't leaving with fifth or sixth,” Torres said. “I wrestled really hard but I felt bad because I dislocated (Koennig)'s shoulder. We ended the tournament with my shoulder on ice and her's in a sling.”
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Girl grapplers vying for national championships today
GENESEE COUNTY
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Saturday, April 01, 2006
JOURNAL SPORTS WRITER
Girls wrestling alongside boys on high school teams has almost become commonplace in recent years.
An occurrence that was rare only a few years ago, isn't that surprising these days.
But there aren't very many female team members.
That won't be the case this weekend however, as the largest girls wrestling tournament in the world unfolds at Lake Orion High School with the ninth annual United States Girls Wrestling Association National Championships on Saturday and Sunday.
Last year, 622 females between the ages of 5-44 participated in the event, which features wrestling in four divisions - elementary school age, middle school age, high school age and collegiate women's open.
Among the marquee names expected to be on hand are 2005 world champion Iris Smith, Olympic team member Tocarra Montgomery of the University of the Cumberlands, 2005 U.S. Senior Women's National Champion and 2004 Olympic Team alternate Alaina Berube, an Escanaba High graduate and junior at Cumberlands who is a four-time USGWA National Champ. Montgomery is a three-time finalist who owns one USGWA National Championship.
Texas and Hawaii are the only states with state-sanctioned high school wrestling championships for girls. Washington this year held its third annual girls state exhibitions as part of their boys high school tournament and appears close to sanctioning girls wrestling.
California's CIF sanctioned a North and South Championships for girls this year and appears ready to sanction a girls season with championship finals.
Expected to compete in the high school division are several girls who have done well wrestling against boys in their state tournaments.
Two-time USGWA National Champ Joey Miller, who finished fourth in the Oklahoma State Championships in 2005, should be there. Alyssa Lampe, who finished second at 103 pounds in the Wisconsin state tournament, is another who's expected, along with Kristi Pearse, who was second at 103 in Maine, and Andrea Hughes, who was fourth in Arizona.
Randi Beltz, who has gone 35-6 for her Missouri boys team and finished fifth at 103 in this year's state tournament, is another notable who should be on hand.
Others who should contend are Misty Corwin, who was fifth at 103 in the Oregon state tournament; Whitney Conder, a two-time Washington state placer at 103; Camie Yeik, who was sixth at 103 in Washington and met Conder in the state tournament; two-time New Mexico state placer Vanessa Lucero; two-time Missouri qualifier Ashley Hudson; Colorado state qualifier Brook Sauer; Kentucky state qualifier Patricia Brownfield; and New York state qualifier Amy Whitbeck.
Michaela Hutchison, who recently won the boys high school state tournament in Alaska, may compete. She flew to Columbus to compete in a USGWA event on March 5. Her father works in the oil fields in Alaska on the North Slope and is working this weekend so her attendance is dependent on making other travel arrangements.
The Flint area won't be without its fair share of competitors. Among them is Goodrich's C.C. Weber, who is ranked No. 8 in the country at 100 pounds and is the sister of Mark Weber, who won his second state championship as a sophomore this year. Goodrich's Kristi Garr is a top title contender in the middle school division.
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By Dan Arritt, Times Staff Writer
April 1, 2006
It wasn't the first time Tatiana Padilla landed on her back. Just the first time she was put there by another girl.
Padilla, a sophomore at Covina Northview, nipped at her nails and stared at the floor as she recalled that split second last summer. Sweat from a recent workout still dampened her bundled hair and a red welt showed beneath her right eye.
As she sat in the classroom where her wrestling coach taught biology, the memory seemed to boil her blood like a science experiment gone wild.
"I got caught," she explained. "I didn't really expect it."
She wasn't down long. Padilla rebounded to win the wrestling match and remain unbeaten against all female opponents. Her streak will be on the line beginning Saturday at the U.S. Girls' Wrestling Assn. national championships in Lake Orion, Mich., where she won the 114-pound high school division title last spring as one of the event's youngest competitors.
"Even when she was 5, she rarely lost to boys," Northview Coach David Ochoa said.
Padilla almost learned to walk on a wrestling mat, tagging alongside her older brother, Chris Lopez, who won a state title at Northview in 2000. At 3 1/2 and weighing just over 32 pounds, she wrestled in a 40-pound weight class because there was nobody her size. She didn't wrestle another girl until she was 8. Padilla won her first girls' national title in eighth grade and her first boys' varsity tournament this winter.
Last summer she gave Marcie Van Dusen and Tina George — ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the U.S. at 121 pounds, respectively — all they could handle during workouts at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
"I hate losing, period," said Padilla, who is ranked sixth nationally. Van Dusen, 23, was the first girl from San Bernardino or Riverside counties to win a boys' league wrestling title when she competed for Lake Arrowhead Rim of the World six years ago. Padilla battled her in a nonstop hourlong match.
"I never did that before," said Padilla, who turned 15 in December. "It was very draining."
George, 27 and a two-time runner-up at the world championships, was not only impressed with Padilla's strength, quickness and technique, but by her composure and maturity.
"Her prospects are very high," George said. "She does the work that it takes to be successful."
Padilla's goal is to become the first woman from the U.S. to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling. At the boys' high school state finals last year, Patricia Miranda displayed the bronze she won at the 2004 Games, when women's wrestling made its Olympic debut.
"Tatiana told me she got a tingling feeling in her arms," said her mother, Lisa Padilla. "She looked at the guy next to her and told him, `I'm going to have the gold.' "
Beijing in 2008 is her primary target. Because she has dual citizenship, she'll attempt to qualify for the Mexican team if she doesn't represent the U.S. Either way, Padilla believes she's coming of age at the right time.
"I want to go to the Olympics," she said. "That's what gets me excited."
Because so few girls participate in wrestling in the U.S., many of the top female wrestlers hone their skills against boys, and Padilla said she wouldn't want it any other way.
"There's more competition because guys are harder to wrestle," she said. "It's more of a challenge."
Two states, Texas and Hawaii, do not allow high school girls to wrestle boys, but those states also have the highest percentage of girl wrestlers in the country.
According to the National Federation of State High School Assns., girls account for 28% of the wrestlers in Hawaii and 17% in Texas. The national rate is closer to 1.75%.
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Erdle poised to grab national medal
By BILL HUNT 3/30/06
bhunt@dailygleaner.com
| GRABBING HOLD: |
Mrs. Erdle, you can look now.
When you do, your daughter might be a national freestyle wrestling champion - again.
Seventeen-year-old Heidi, a Grade 12 student at Fredericton High School, is already a national champion - in three different age classes - in New Zealand, where the family spent a year on an educational exchange before returning to Fredericton last December.
"It's not a big accomplishment," said Heidi, chuckling. "There were like, five girls total. I practiced maybe 10 times the whole time I was there."
Next week, the five-foot-seven inch, 130-pound (60 kilo) wrestler, fresh from a silver medal at the junior national championships at Fredericton High School, will be shooting for the top of the podium at the juvenile national championships for competitors 16-17 in Edmonton.
Her Black Bears teammate and fellow FHS student, Eric Feunekes, just turned 17 and in his first year of juvenile competition, is aiming for a finish among the top two in his 85-kilo weight class as well after a second place finish in nationals as a cadet last year.
For Erdle, it doesn't seem that long ago - she was a Grade 9 student at the time - that her mom "went to my first competition and had to cover her eyes," said Heidi. "She started crying.
"I think my parents are used to it now. They know that I can kind of handle myself."
Indeed.
She played on the FHS championship football team this past season. When in New Zealand, she played - and made - regional rugby teams, playing on both the girls and boys high school teams.
"I guess I play more aggressive sports than most girls do," she said, in what might be considered a classic understatement.
FEUNEKES
She took up wrestling when she was cut from the girls basketball team in Grade 9, which led her to the mats.
"Looking back on it, I was awful," she said. "I did OK. I had the athletic ability initially to do pretty well here in New Brunswick, and it kind of expanded from there."
"She's very athletic and a very hard worker," said coach Don Ryan.
That's kind of what drew her to it in the first place.
"It's a really hard sport," she said. "I play a lot of sports and wrestling by far is the most intense that I've ever participated in. There are times that I really hate it and I think 'Why do I do this to myself?' Because it's really hard on you emotionally and mentally and physically. But I think it teaches you so much about life. It helps you develop. If you're a good wrestler, then you're a good person, because you succeed in all areas of your life."
Considering the fact that she basically lost a year of competitive wrestling on the aforementioned exchange to New Zealand and another ten weeks on the mats when she required surgery after tearing the meniscus in her left knee in a competition in New York at the end of November - she spent two weeks on crutches and "it was awful," she lamented - her silver medal victory at the junior nationals is pretty remarkable.
She narrowly lost to University of Calgary wrestler Justine Bouchard in the gold medal match, losing rounds 1-0 and 2-0. But despite the fact she's at "about 80 or 85 per cent," she says she's "going in to win it this year. It's feeling pretty good lately and we're going to develop a game plan around it. I'm a little slower."
After the competition in Edmonton next week, Erdle will travel to Calgary for a look at the campus. She's weighing her options among the University of Calgary, Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. and UNB, with an eye toward competing for Canada at the 2012 or 2016 Olympics.
"I really want to see what I can do with it," she said.
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Lake Orion High School
Lake Orion, MIchigan
Saturday & Sunday, April 1-2, 2006
High School Age Division
The Finals:
100 lbs. - Nicole Woody (Maryland) dec. Amy Whitbeck (New York) 4-2.
105 lbs. - Caitlyn Chase (Illinois) dec. Jessica Teter (West Virginia) 6-3.
110 lbs. - Alyssa Lampe (Wisconsin) dec. Whitney Conder (Washington) 8-5.
114 lbs. - Joey Miller (Oklahoma) dec. Helen Maroulis (Maryland) 5-1.
118 lbs. - LeAnn Barney (Texas) pinned Trinity Plessinger (California) 0:32.
122 lbs. - Sarah Peasley (Michigan) pinned Beth Johnson (Kansas) 3:36.
126 lbs. - Tatiana Padilla (California) dec. Cheyenne Stokes (Oklahoma) 7-2.
130 lbs. - Adeline Gray (Colorado) dec. Christine Cunningham (California) 4-2 OT.
134 lbs. - Wrindy Shann (Michigan) dec. Shamaine Danner (Missouri) 5-3.
138 lbs. - Jackie Cataline (California) maj.dec. Samantha Gorman (Michigan) 19-9.
144 lbs. - Sheila McCabe (California) pinned Paige Rife (Michigan) 2:34.
152 lbs. - Amberlee Ebert (Wisconsin) maj.dec. Teri Milkoff (California) 12-1.
165 lbs. - Amy Havens (California) dec. Dallas Monreal-Berner (Illinois) 4-2.
Over 165 lbs. - Brittany Delgado (South Carolina) pinned Carrie Clark (Texas) 3:31.
Consolation Finals for 3rd:
100 lbs. - Michelle Jiminez (California) dec. Tiffany Sluik (Iowa) 5-4.
105 lbs. - Camie Yeik (Washington) pinned Angel Diaz (Texas) 4:38.
110 lbs. - Katherine Fulp-Allen (California) maj. Samantha Lopez (California) 13-4.
114 lbs. - Kelli Rasmussen (Minnesota) maj.dec. Schuyler Brown (Virginia) 12-2.
118 lbs. - Ashley Hebert (Michigan) pinned Andi Eisenhower (Maine) 4:31.
122 lbs. - Shelby Shirley (Ohio) dec. Erica Torres (California) 5-0.
126 lbs. - Brittany Woodall (West Virginia) dec. Jenna Ahnen (Wisconsin) 7-3.
130 lbs. - Jordan St. Germaine (North Dakota) dec. Breisja Gallo (Florida) 7-2.
134 lbs. - Veronica Carlson (Illinois) dec. Erin Clodgo (Vermont) 3-2.
138 lbs. - Samantha Fee (New Jersey) dec. Rachel Tiedeman (Wisconsin) 3-1.
144 lbs. - Marina Piccolotti (California) dec. Ashley Mora (California) 4-1.
152 lbs. - Briana Conway (Pennsylvania) pinned Lindsey Brooks (Texas) 2:39.
165 lbs. - Cherasa Leak (Kansas) dec. Shandanee Todd (Florida) 5-0.
Over 165 lbs. - Sarah Deardorff (Illinois) dec. Jessica Deardorff (Illinois) 4-1.
Consolation Finals for 5th:
100 lbs. - Keiko Akamine (Hawaii) inj.def. over Anai Novoa (California).
105 lbs. - Misty Corwin (Oregon) dec. Andrea Hughes (Arizona) 7-0.
110 lbs. - Jazzy Green (California) pinned Georgette Villegas (Texas) 4:17.
114 lbs. - Regina Ward (Kansas) dec. Janelle McSurley (Ohio) 5-1.
118 lbs. - Amber Miracle (Wisconsin) maj.dec. Heather Thompson (New York) 10-0.
122 lbs. - Christina Cox (Washington) inj.def. over Kristian Koenning (California).
126 lbs. - Samantha Phillips (California) dec. Jessica Rea (Connecticut) 7-0.
130 lbs. - Ashley Johnson (Minnesota) dec. Aubrae Putnam (Alaska) 5-3.
134 lbs. - Lauren Knight (California) pinned Emily Espana (California) 2:22.
138 lbs. - Kara Takasaki (Hawaii) dec. Angie Miller (California) 5-3.
144 lbs. - Christen Paysse (California) pinned Megan Agajanian (California) 3:53.
152 lbs. - Sarah English (Ohio) dec. Ashley Westman (New York) 7-2.
165 lbs. - Jessica Klever (California) pinned Qadriyah Simmons (Ohio) 1:19.
Over 165 lbs. - Leah Paige (Texas) dec. Olivia Fatongia (Hawaii) 3-2 OT.
Consolation Finals for 7th:
100 lbs. - Victoria Anthony (California) dec. Gabby Solis (California) 6-0.
105 lbs. - Louise Marlow (New Jersey) dec. Logan Howard (New York) 5-3.
110 lbs. - Julie Kirk (Oregon) pinned Melissa Richey (Indiana) 2:48.
114 lbs. - Chandra Peterson (Iowa) dec. Elizabeth DeAngelo (North Carolina) 4-2.
118 lbs. - Jessica Peasley (Michigan) dec. Tiffany Larriba (Texas) 9-8.
122 lbs. - Melissa Lesner (Michigan) dec. Lisa Light (Ohio) 5-1.
126 lbs. - Rachel Hubbard (Washington) dec. Kristi Owings (Oregon) 3-1.
130 lbs. - Paige Storm (Iowa) pinned Morgan Holland (Minnesota) 1:41.
134 lbs. - Jolene Crook-Meyers (Washington) pinned Ivy Bier (California) 2:00.
138 lbs. - Danielle Cox (West Virginia) pinned Chandra Engel (Kansas) 2:24.
144 lbs. - Kelsea Suchocki (New York) dec. Nikita Netjes (Michigan) 7-2.
152 lbs. - Monica Gonzalez (California) pinned Jordan Hagerman (Missouri) 3:56.
165 lbs. - Kiele Lehel (Hawaii) pinned Drrue Partridge (Washington) 1:35.
Over 165 lbs. - Basulto Paloma (California) dec. Lakia Henderson (Florida) 6-2.
Consolation Finals for 9th:
100 lbs. - C. C. Weber (Michigan) dec. Vanessa Nordstrom (California) 9-2.
105 lbs. - Samantha Price (Ohio) dec. Carla Watase (Hawaii) 3-0.
110 lbs. - Antonia Navejas (Washington) dec. Kristen Campbell (California) 6-2.
114 lbs. - Brandy Price (New Jersey) inj.def. over Grace Flood (Pennsylvania).
118 lbs. - Angie Mayes (Nevada) dec. Casey Mangnall (Oregon) 2-1.
122 lbs. - Beatriz Alvarez (California) dec. Rachel Pike (Colorado) 7-1.
126 lbs. - Jennifer Peabody (Ohio) dec. Lisa Szczepaniak (California) 4-3 2OT.
130 lbs. - Jade Anderson (California) pinned Christian Bell (North Carolina) 1:31.
134 lbs. - Stephanie Geltmacher (Hawaii) dec. Kaylee Frisch (Wisconsin) 5-3.
138 lbs. - Ashley White (Ohio) dec. Tasheba Jackson (North Carolina) 10-6.
144 lbs. - Sheri Buchanan (California) pinned Monique Dilliner (Hawaii) 2:32.
152 lbs. - Ana Hernandez (New Jersey) dec. Leslee Arwood (North Carolina) 5-0.
165 lbs. - Laura Lee (Michigan) pinned Emma Fojtik (Michigan) 2:53.
Over 165 lbs. - Adele Kurt (Texas) dec. Kristen Esterheld (California) 8-3.
Consolation Finals for 11th:
100 lbs. - Jennifer Fernandez (California) maj.dec. Helen Timmons (Texas) 14-3.
105 lbs. - Megan Morisada (Hawaii) dec. Gabrielle Henry (Ohio) 10-9.
110 lbs. - Emily Martin (Texas) tech.fall Kelley Urionaguena (California) 16-1 (4:55).
114 lbs. - Ariel Green (California) inj.def. over Suzanne Baker (Texas).
118 lbs. - Sonya Lucatero (California) dec. Caroline Williams (California) 5-0.
122 lbs. - Dyami Souza (Connecticut) pinned Rebekah Anger (Michigan) 0:43.
126 lbs. - Sarah Feinman (Massachusetts) dec. Jackie Hoffman (Wisconsin) 2-1.
130 lbs. - Chelsea Yoder (Ohio) inj.def. over Samantha Stych (California).
134 lbs. - Emma Randall (Ohio) forfeit over Megan Wech (New York).
138 lbs. - Katrina Collins (Michigan) forfeit over Jamie Trentadue (Wisconsin).
144 lbs. - Amanda Vargo (Michigan) inj.dec. over Haley Slivensky (Michigan).
152 lbs. - Laura Gourley (Oregon) dec. Katie Crouch (Florida) 6-5.
165 lbs. - Peggy Ludlow (Wisconsin) inj.def. over Danielle Beltran (California).
Over 165 lbs. - Lauren Birks (Texas) dec. Kathleen Rooney (Michigan) 7-4.
