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YOUTH WRESTLING: South Wrestling Club has eight individual winners
3/1/07
The Southmont Wrestling Club competed in three separate events this past weekend.
One set of wrestlers went to a Center Grove tournament and the other set went to a Beech Grove tournament.
Taylor Brownfield (35 pounds), Jayden Williams (60) and Brodie Englan (115) finished in first-place in the Center Grove tournament.
Boone Welliever (50), Jake Moore (155) and Nick Hodges (189) finished in first-place in the Beech Grove tournament.
Two girls, Rachel Welliever and Gibby Paxton, also competed at the Indiana Girls State Wrestling Championships at New Castle this past Sunday.
Welliever won the elementary school age division, while Paxton won the middle school age division.
Southmont Wrestling Club results
Center Grove Tournament
At Center Grove
35: Taylor Brownfield (1st); 50: Skylar Crum (3rd), Devin Crum (8th); 55: Ty Williams (7th); 60: Jayden Williams (1st), Austin Manion (4th); 90: Brian Larson (2nd), Landon Nave (2nd), Bryce Allgood (2nd); 95: Brooklyn England (5th); 115: Brodie England (1st)
Beech Grove Tournament
At Beech Grove
45: Ty Welliver (4th); 50: Boone Welliever (1st), Alex Grino (4th); 152: Matt Joyce (4th); 155: Jake Moore (1st); 160: Ryan Chism (5th); 189: Nick Hodges (1st)
Indiana Girls State Wrestling Championships
At New Castle
Sunday
Elementary school age division: Rachel Welliever (1st)
Middle school age division: Gibby Paxton (1st)
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Watase seeks perfect ending
By Wes Nakama 3/2/07
Advertiser Staff Writer
'Iolani School senior Carla Watase is a sweet, soft-spoken, church-going girl who exudes innocence and humility.
But try to beat her on a wrestling mat, and be ready for six minutes of hell — if you can last that long.
"When she steps into a match, she's able to just flip the switch," said 'Iolani coach Yoshi Honda. "Competition is what drives her, and she challenges herself and expects perfection, so a lot of times her closest competitor is herself."
In four years of high school wrestling, Watase's record is 136-2. She again enters the Chevron Hawai'i State Championships as a No. 1 seed, this time at 108 pounds, and is on the doorstep of becoming only the second girl to win four individual state championships.
Moanalua's Caylene Valdez did it from 2000-2003, and Kamehameha's Hoku Nohara also has a chance to join the ultra-elite four-peat club if she wins the 220-pound title tomorrow.
"I'm really excited," Watase said. "This is my chance to to do it; it's been my goal."
Watase's only two losses came last year, when she forfeited a match because of a bad ankle and then lost the next day while competing despite the injury.
Her sophomore year, she wrestled the entire season with a torn muscle in her left shoulder, postponing surgery until after she won the 103-pound state title.
"I actually tore it the summer before, in Fargo (N.D.)," said Watase, who won the state title at 98 pounds as a freshman. "But I didn't find out until a couple months before the season, and if I had the surgery then, it would be too late (to wrestle in 2004-05). So I waited."
That meant not only enduring pain, but also adjusting her wrestling techniques to minimize exposure to the bad shoulder.
"She changed her style, and that just goes to show how complete a mat wrestler she is," Honda said. "We tried to have her shooting more on the outside so she wouldn't roll on it as much, but she had to work that into the way she wrestled."
It also did not eliminate all the pain.
"When I made a bad shot, it was really sore," Watase said.
She went undefeated, but it was a struggle till the very end.
In the state championship match, Kahuku's Danica Auna took a 2-0 lead on a takedown in the first period but Watase tied it early in the third period and then won 16 seconds into overtime, 4-2.
The victory was crucial in helping the Raiders edge Baldwin, 130.5 points to 129.5, for their first girls team state championship.
After the two losses last year, Watase rebounded from an illness to win her third state crown by defeating Mililani's Brandie Dela Rama, 11-5, at 103 pounds.
This season, Watase is undefeated again and won her fourth Interscholastic League of Honolulu crown with a 10-0 defeat in the title match last Saturday.
'Iolani also won the ILH team championship for the first time since her freshman year, 142 to 140 over Kamehameha.
"I'm super proud of our team because everybody really stepped it up," Watase said. "It was hard because two girls quit (during the season) and another girl got injured, so we had three empty classes. But we still believed and everybody worked so hard ... I think if everybody steps up again, we can take it (the state championship)."
Like many of her teammates, Watase has had more than just the state tournament on her mind this week. She had exams in advanced placement statistics and biology, plus a report due for AP bio. She also is taking AP calculus and carries a cumulative grade point average of over 4.0.
"I've been busy," she said.
Watase, who also plays the piano and ran cross country as a sophomore, is deciding between wrestling at Pacific (Ore.) University or attending the University of Hawai'i, which does not have a wrestling program. She also is waiting on other college options, and said she is thinking about optometry school as a post-graduate possibility.
But first, there is the fourth state title to aim for, a by-product of years of training at 'Iolani and with her father, David.
"Her dad gave her an excellent base and is a big reason she got to this level," Honda said.
It's a level that only a select few ever reach.
"I want to make sure I have no regrets," Watase said. "I'm pretty excited."
Watch the Free web cast of the Hawaii State Wrestling Championships
Saturday, March 3rd 2007
4:30 Hawaii Time (6:30pm PST/9:30pm EST)
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2007 State Wrestling Tournament: Carla Watase
March 2, 2007
On the outside, Carla Watase appears to be your stereotypical Iolani girl. Smart, soft-spoken, humble… And with dark hair and an unassuming stature, you probably couldn’t even pick her out of a crowded hallway…
On the wrestling mat, Watase is a far from “typical”. She is the 4-time defending ILH champion and the 3-time defending state champion who sports an overall record of 136-2 and is the #1 seed going into the 2007 State Wrestling Tournament where she hopes to pick up her 4th consecutive state title. Accomplishing that feat would place the 108-lb senior in elite company. To date, Caylene Valdez of Moanlua is the one female wrestler to win 4 state titles when she did it from 2000-03.
The 2007 State Wrestling Tournament runs today and tomorrow (March 2 & 3) at Blaisdell Arena.
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Jay Diem photo
Mandi Barnes, Northampton High School's 112-pound wrestler, will be the first female wrestler to represent the Eastern Shore of Virginia at the Virginia High School League Group A Wrestling Tournament today and Saturday.
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Ladies wrassle their way to the top of Canada West
Jon Roe
Sports Editor March 01, 2007
“Ability is nothing without opportunity.”
-Napoleon Bonaparte
The Dinos women’s wrestling team had an opportunity to display their ability in Saskatoon when they travelled east to take on their western Canada opponents in the Canada West finals. The result was a gold medal for the ladies, their fourth first-place finish of the season.
“We had five individual champions out of eight weight classes, a pretty dominant performance,” said Dinos head coach Mitch Ostberg. “At CanWest there are very strong women’s teams to compete against. [The University of] Regina had a very good women’s team, [University of] Saskatchewan had a full squad, and of course, Simon Fraser University, the returning champions from last year, is always strong. They have a perennial strength, they’ve won Canadian Interuniversity Sport three times in a row and we hope to dethrone them this year.”
Captain Andrea Ross admitted that they had expected to win going into the tournament. “Truthfully, yes,” said Ross. “The way we have performed this whole year has been consistent and everyone competed to their abilities. We just dominated every team, throughout. We were fairly confident going in.”
The Dinos also took gold at the Dinos invitational in October, at Lakehead University in December, and at the Golden Bear Open in Edmonton in January. Several rookies stepped up for the Dinos, including Genevieve Haley, who was named the female rookie of the year.
“Gen was fifth in junior nationals last year,” said Ostberg. “She’s a very strong competitor already entering the program. But she’s really developed rapidly and is improving. You should never say you’re not surprised when a rookie wins, but she’s really quite good. It’s not that surprising that she can win.” In the 82 kg class, Dino Meg Goldsmith settled an old score that had been a thorn in her side all season.
“Megan Goldsmith and Shayla Turcotte from SFU have had kind of a rivalry back and forth this year,” said Ross. “Megan’s come up short against her a few times before but just annihilated her at CanWest and solidified our win against the Clan.”
“It was really thrilling to watch Megan go out in the last match against her conference rival and throw and pin her opponent to win the Canada West title for her individual placement,” said Ostberg. “We pretty much secured the team title at that time but it was great for her to end with such a dramatic finish.”
The men’s side finished with a tie for bronze, but Ostberg noted that the finish is good for the inexperienced team.
“We have a young men’s team,” said Ostberg. “The majority of our team is in their second season of wrestling. With such a young team you can’t really expect too much, but I thought our men’s team performed very well. Out of the nine athletes we entered, eight qualified for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport championships which is almost the level of the best teams for qualification. The top team, SFU, qualified nine guys.”
CIS championships are Mar. 2-3 in Saskatoon. The Dinos will be sending eight female wrestlers to go with their eight male qualifiers, and will be going into the championships as the top-ranked women’s team in the country. Though confident going into the CW championships, the team is understandably cautious when it comes to next weekend’s nation-wide event with great programs like Western University and Brock University participating.
“[Western and Brock] are very competitive and we’ll have to be careful to perform our best against those competitors,” said Ostberg. “Because the CIS is an open-format tournament, you don’t necessarily go head to head against those teams. We meet them in open tournament play, individuals, in different weight classes. We may meet some of those opponents and we may not.”
Ross minced no words in describing her mind-set going into the season-ending championships. “I want to perform my best, and I want to lead our team to the championship,” said Ross. “Now, because it’s my fourth year, I pretty much know everyone that’s going to be in there. I’ve wrestled everyone that I will be seeing at the CIS, and hopefully [I’ll meet] the girl I’m expecting to be in the final. I’ve been studying her hard. I’ve wrestled her, we’ve gone back and forth, it should be a good match.”
If the Dinos can take away the CIS championship, it’ll be their first since 2001, the end of a three-year run that started with the first women’s championship in 1999.
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Pleas, Apodaca among girls state wrestling champs
Posted in General | | March 2nd, 2007
Pleas, Apodaca among girls state wrestling champs
Alaska Star - 107-119, High School 1) Chloe Ivanoff, Kodiak; 2) Brooke Nelson, Wasilla; 3) Rachel Shannon, Big Lake; 4) Elizabeth Ankivgak, Sitka. 120-126, High School 1) Michaela Hutchison, Skyview; 2) Aerial Seltenreich, Wasilla; 3) Claira Sallenbach
