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OCU to host NAIA wrestling tourney

OCU had submitted its bid late last year. The tournament will be held at Abe Lemons Arena for two years with an option for a third in 2011. The Stars have added a men's team two years ago and created a women's program that began wrestling this year.

The NAIA tournament has been held in Sioux Falls, Iowa in recent years. This year's tournament is March 6-8. OCU will hold a press conference Thursday morning to outline its plans as host.

Sports Capsule: Six grapplers are perfect at Vallejo meet for Napa Sherriff’s Activities League squad

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Cinco Ranch The Cougars will host the Texas High School Wrestling Coaches Association dual state tournament at the Merrell Center on Saturday. Action for the boys 16-team event begins at 8 a.m. Saturday, and the girls eight-team dual meet kicks off at 12:45 p.m. Finals are scheduled for 6:45 p.m. Klein, Katy Taylor, Cinco Ranch and Westside boys will represent the Houston area along with the Cypress Ridge and Waller girls teams. Cypress Ridge With the city dual championships plaque in their trophy case, the Lady Rams have once piece of unfinished business before Saturday's state dual tournament at the Merrell Center in Katy. Cy Ridge hosts Waller and Cypress Springs in a tri-meet at 5 p.m. Thursday. When Cy Ridge and Waller hit the mat, it will be the first clash of the local dual titans this season. Both want the honor of beating the other heading into Saturday's big show. Episcopal Episcopal won its first team championship Saturday at St. Thomas after 2 1/2 years of pursuing that goal. Coach Steve Leisz said Ben Estus captured first at 103 pounds and Matthew Blades won gold at 145. The squad advanced seven to the tournament finals. Waller The Lady Bulldogs finished fifth Saturday at the Lady Horn Classic, a 26-team girls event hosted by defending state champion Amarillo Caprock. Caprock won convincingly with 301 points. Hereford (213) finished second, Palo Duro (153) third, El Paso Chapin (142) fourth, Waller (141) fifth and Tascosa (126) sixth. State runner-up Whitney Disotelle placed second at 138 pounds, and Maegan Fellers rounded out Waller's top efforts with a win at 185. Courtney Bates at 165 took third, and Shelby Fellers at 148 placed fifth. Waller's 128-pound standout Amanda Kelso did not place as she competed in a 30-girl weight class highlighted by national No. 1 Joey Miller of Woodward, Okla., Texas' top-ranked Stephanie Villegas of Hereford and a host of state medalists from Caprock and El Paso. After a 5-0 start, Kelso dropped two matches Saturday. TERRY CARTER

From Register Staff

The Napa Sheriff’s Activities League Wrestling Club saw six of its 22 grapplers go undefeated on Thursday at a meet in Vallejo against host Springstowne Middle School, the Vallejo Wrestling Club and the Stockton Wrestling Club.

Among sixth-graders, 88-pounder Maggie Douma, 11, was 2-0 with two pins — in 2:25 and 23 seconds; 111-pounder Alex Rocha, 11, went 3-0 with two pins (2:52 and 31 seconds); and 93-pounder Caleb Tremblay, 11, was 1-1.

Three seventh-graders had an unbeaten day as 63-pounder JonVan Lucero, 11, went 2-0 with two pins (50 seconds and 13 seconds); and 123-pounder Anthony Schweitz, 13, was 1-0 with a 2:40 pin.

For the eighth-graders, 123-pounder Randy Keen, 13, went 2-0 with a 42-second pin; 133-pounder Jeff Muth and 89-pounder Justin Thayer, both 13, were each 1-1 with a 59-second pin.

The fifth-graders saw 73-pounder Eric Johnson, 10, finish 3-0 with a 30-second pin; 96-pounder Alexis Macias, 10, go 1-1; 62-pounder Kelsey Mitchell, 10, finish 1-2; and 62-pounder Adam Muth, 10, go 1-1.

Kindergartener Konrad Fiske, 5, was 1-1 at 60 pounds; and second-grader Tanner DeBow, 7, was 0-2 at 45s. Among third-graders, 78-pounder Dakota Macias, 63-pounder Patrick Ramirez, and 62-pounder Melia Tharp, all 8, were each 1-1; and 81-pounder Alyvia Fiske, 8, was 0-3.

The fourth-graders saw 50-pounder Jessica Lucero, 9, 86-pounder James Kenny, 10, each go 1-1; while 71-pounder Jordan Lane, 9, and 90-pounder Noah Cushman, 12, went 0-2.

The Napa SAL Wrestling Club practices from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Vintage High School cafeteria. The cost is free. The program is coached by Lt. Jean Donaldson, Deputy Jesse Ward, Deputy Dan Fiske, SHPD Officer Justin Tharp, Eric Jones and Stephen Denna./Register

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/hso/5458433.html

Strong showing by Trojan four-person girls team

Petaluma made the most of a small wrestling team, using just four wrestlers to finish 17th out of 58 teams in last weekend’s Vintage Girls Classic in Napa.

Mimi Westlake led the Petaluma effort with a fourth-place finish at 138 pounds. Westlake had a 3-2 record that included two pins and a major decision.

One of her losses was an outstanding effort in a 15-6 loss to defending California champion Myra Fernandez of Live Oak.

Isabella Pimentel was 3-3 with a pin and a major decision to finish sixth at 122 pounds.

Vanessa Stampler and Bianca Bissom also wrestled well for Petaluma with Stamler finishing 1-2 and Bissom 0-2.

I f publicity was based on toughness, wrestling would be headline news on a daily basis.

Instead, you'll find glamour sports such as football, hockey and basketball grabbing daily ink while wrestlers sweat and grunt in the bowels of Alumni Hall in obscurity, practising a craft that is singular in its dedication and determination.

Western not only has Ray Takahashi, one of the best coaches in Canada, but it has a strong team. Its women are defending Ontario university champions, while the men finished third.

They're building toward the OUA championships next month at McMaster.

"We operate a little differently than a lot of the other team sports who have all these games and make the playoffs and then progress," Takahashi said. "Our big meet is to peak at the OUA championship. We're allowed to put in our best wrestlers in all the weight classes --10 men and eight women. So that's our ultimate goal. Leading up to that we have these tournaments and they are important, but sometimes what happens at these tournaments isn't really indicative of what will happen at the OUA championship."

A wrestler's goal is to be in prime condition for the major tournaments. In a sport where the body takes a constant pounding, getting body and mind ready for major competitions is a delicate balance.

"It's one of these things, we have the ability to either do really well or really bad. If we don't peak w 

by team, is about as tough an athlete as there is. She's getting back in wrestling shape after seperating a shoulder during rugby season. Shoulder separations usually take as long as three months to heal. McCallum didn't want to miss the playoffs, so she came back a little sooner than she should have.

She wrestled in the Brock meet on the weekend and finished second.

"I was happy because I haven't had much mat time," McCallum said. "It was really my first real tournament of the year."

McCallum prefers team sports but says wrestling is tougher to compete in.

"On the rugby field, you have your whole team behind you," McCallum said. "I find the individual component of wrestling, at the end of the match if you lose, you have no one to blame but yourself. You didn't prepare well enough. You don't have that support network to fall back on."

She loves the one-on-one contact that wrestling provides.

"As much as it's mentally stressful, when you win you know it's all you that finished above your opponent," McCallum said. "It's a two-sided coin. When you lose the disappointed it's that much worse. When you lose it's that much more rewarding."

The wrestling team competes pretty much every weekend until the OUA championship. They will have a week off from competition the weekend before that championship. On Feb. 2, Western will play host to its Western Open. At the Brock tournament, both teams finished third.

Laura Skopelianos, a fourth-year kinesiology student at Western, won the individual 51-kg gold medal and was named the outstanding female wrestler. She is the defending Ontario champion.

McCallum placed second at 72 kg, with Katrina Huszarik placing fourth at 59 kg. Lesley McCallum won the individual bronze at 55 kg.

"I'm just trying to get as strong as possible," Jill McCallum said. "I'm doing physio and getting back to a weight routine. I've altered my tactics a little bit, altered my stance to protect it a little bit more. I might be a little more defensive than last year. I won't have as much mat time. There's a big tournament this weekend but I probably won't wrestle in it. After last weekend, I'm a little sore. I have to be a little selective."

In the men's category, Jeff Werden placed second at 54 kg while teammates Phil Medeiros and Chen Shen placed third in the 61- and 57-kg category respectively.

"I didn't know what to expect at Brock because of the break," Takahashi said. "Our goal was to get matches to gauge where we are at this point. We came out of it pretty good. Most of our wrestles got four matches. Our fitness was good. We has some good results so I think we're on track."

Takahashi expects the wrestlers who placed at Brock to all do well through to the Ontario championships. Werden finished second in Ontario last year.

"You know you're going to get four or five matches in the (Ontario championships,)" Takahashi said. "It doesn't sound like much but it's tough. You have to be in good shape to recover between matches. Everyone can do one, maybe two but it's that third, fourth match that conditioning really helps out. We have to prepare for that number."

Her opponent was on the verge of tears, like many of them end up. This one walked off the mat, past his red-faced coaches and straight out of the gym, too embarrassed to return.

And in the center of the mat, there stood Tia Forrester, gasping for air, her dark blonde hair scrunched under her headgear.The referee held her hand up high. Another win for the Buford girl who wrestles boys. And beats them.

Forrester, a senior, has already proven she can compete in a male-dominated sport. Now, she's trying to become one of Georgia's best Class AA wrestlers in her weight group. And that's making her opponents as uncomfortable as ever.

"I want to show these guys," Forrester said, " 'Hey, a girl can come out here and do this just as well as you can.' "

Or better. Forrester is 24-13 this year and has placed in every tournament she's been in. Last month, she became the first girl ever to place at the Gwinnett County tournament, finishing fifth in the 103-pound bracket.

And she's working toward another first for a female wrestler in Georgia: placing at next month's state tournament. She was one win short of doing it last year.

"If it happened, I wouldn't be shocked," said Pickens coach John Judkins, whose 103-pounder lost to Forrester last weekend. "She's a tough wrestler. I wish I had her."

At 5 feet 1 and 102 pounds, Forrester looks like she'd have trouble tossing around a wrestling dummy. But she overcomes her relative lack of strength with her technique. And she outlasts many opponents with her endurance.

There is something else, though. You see it when Forrester is close to being pinned, only to somehow get up. You see it in between periods when she bounces around on her toes, like a boxer in her corner.

"She's got it in her heart," said Wesleyan freshman Brooks Spraetz, who beat Forrester last month. "She's real motivated and she gets after it.

"She doesn't back down."

If she were any different, Forrester probably wouldn't be alive. She was born three months premature, just 3 pounds, and spent most of the first year of her life in and out of hospitals.

Between an intestinal blockage, a heart murmur and two major operations, she was an underdog at infancy.http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2008/01/13/hsforrester0113.html

"She's been fighting for a long time," said her father, Scott, a Buford assistant coach.

Scott Forrester, who wrestled at North Gwinnett in the early '80s, was reluctant to let his daughter get into the sport. But she persisted. She would wrestle her younger brother, Scottie, now a junior at Buford, after his youth practices. So when Tia was in sixth grade, her father relented.

If only it were that easy for everyone else to accept her.

Nationwide, girls' participation in wrestling has grown exponentially. There are more than 5,000 female high school wrestlers, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, up from 112 in 1990. Several Western states have all-girls' teams.

But in Georgia, the sight of a female wrestler is still jarring to many observers.

There were 155 in the state in 2006, according to the most recent Georgia High School Association survey. And, as in many states that do not have a girls' division, coed wrestling is controversial.

"There's certain people that think just because I wrestle, I want to be a guy," Forrester said. "That's not how it is. I can be as much of a girl outside of wrestling as any other girl out there. But when I'm on the mat, that's all I'm thinking about."

Gender still comes into play on the mat, though. Every year, there are a handful of schools that forfeit rather than face Forrester.

Some are uneasy about the idea of boys slamming girls to the ground, even in sport. But with Forrester, many are more concerned about the opposite happening —- and the public humiliation.

Spraetz, of Wesleyan, said wrestling girls is a no-win situation for boys.

"It's awkward," he said. "You don't really want to go 100 percent because it's a girl. But you don't want to lose, because then it's like, you lost to a girl."

How does Forrester react to all this? Consider the time last year one father promised his son $100 as long as he didn't lose to her. The boy told Forrester about the offer just before their match. Then Forrester pinned him.

And, no, she didn't get the money, though she felt tempted to ask.

The only thing that gets to Forrester is the way people compliment her when she loses. After going to the state tournament the past three years, she expects more from herself now.

But many people still look at her as a girl first and a wrestler second. Which is why it's so important to her to make history this season.

"I'm still getting told, 'Good job, good job,' when I know I went out there and didn't do my best," Forrester said. "And they're like, 'No, you did good, he's a guy.'

"That's not why I'm going out there. I'm going out there to wrestle like a guy."

THE TIA FORRESTER FILE

> School: Buford

> Age: 18

> Year: Senior

> Season record: 24-13

> Career record: 139-69

> Favorite movie: "Million Dollar Baby"

> Goals: To become the first female wrestler in Georgia to place at the state tournament; to earn a college wrestling scholarship.

SPRINGFIELD — It was not a pretty scene.

During Tuesday's dual meet between Northeastern and Northwestern, Jets junior Emily Fishbough, one of five area girls wrestling against boys this season, was on the mat trying to escape from her opponent when suddenly she let out a shrieking yell of pain and grabbed her right hamstring.

Northeastern's Emily Fishbough (top) gets ready to pin London's James Johnson during their 119-pound match during a meet last week at Kenton Ridge.Click to enlarge

As she lay writhing and screaming in agony for several minutes, her senior sister and teammate Katie was beside herself, fighting back tears (and losing the battle), as she looked on. They had been wrestling together for over a decade and now their worst fears were being realized.

As it turned out, Emily had just a severe pull and should be back in action in the next two weeks. But it may have made some onlookers wonder if girls really did belong on the mat with boys.

To that, the answer is a resounding yes.

"The girls have built enough of a reputation for themselves that they get the respect of coaches in the area," said Northeastern coach Ben Obee, who first welcomed a girl (Megan Rousculp) into his program six years ago. "Fortunately for us, the girls have had great success for us in the program.

"Both Katie and Emily have had 30-win seasons for us in their careers and they've earned the respect of the coaches."

They surprise some folks, though.

"My parents didn't really think I'd stay with it very long because I was the girly girl. I was into frills and everything," said Emily. "I think that it's the challenge that really made me stick with it."

Katie stays with it for different reasons.

"I love the physical activity," said Katie. "I love being pushed, so that's definitely what I like about it.

"I started powerlifting and (wrestling) has helped me out tremendously with that. I'm very glad I stuck with it."

Suzanna Garvey, Urbana's senior starting 103-pounder and a fourth-year wrestler, hit on another reason.

"It has helped my self-esteem," she said. "I know if I work hard at something, I know I can get it."

Garvey has gotten some strange responses, though.

"While I'm waiting to wrestle, a lot of guys will just kind of stare, not knowing if I'm a wrestler or not," she said. "A lot of guys think I'm a stats girl until they actually see me put my wrestling gear on."

Drawbacks don't bother North junior and first-year wrestler Chrissie Watson. She knows her teammates have "got her back."

"If a guy would do something sexually to me, they would stick up for me," said Watson. "I don't like hiding my sexuality because I'm a girl. I always have to put my hair up (in a cap required by the OHSAA), but I understand why at the same time."

Obee laughs at some of the wrestlers' reactions he's seen.

"They can't believe it was a girl that they had just wrestled," he said. "One kid swore up and down it wasn't a girl he just wrestled. I said, 'No, it wasn't a girl, it was a wrestler.' "

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0364 or krowe@coxohio.com.

As coaches assess their young rosters, San Marin loses Alvarado to injury

By Mark Dittmer, Sports Editor
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 2:30 PM PST

On Monday afternoon at San Marin High School, one of the city’s best high school wrestlers re-injured his knee. As a result, he may miss his whole junior season.

Practice had barely started. The team’s wrestlers had barely gotten warm. And all of a sudden, Lawrence Alvarado was sitting on the sideline — where he will possibly continue to sit for the rest of the season.

“There goes my junior year,” he said.

The Mustang roster gets a little thinner as a result — aside from 2007 state qualifier Theo Phan, San Marin is entirely made up of juniors and freshmen.

“It looks like we’ll be more of a tournament team this year,” Mustang coach Dan Donaldson said.

While Donaldson’s juniors chase individual success at the varsity level, his freshman are finding it at j.v. tournaments. Fif Slack won the 103-lb. bracket at a tourney in Granada over the weekend, while three other freshman netted fourth-place finishes.

Novato High’s roster is also almost senior free. Lone returning North Coast Section qualifier Anthony Giordani has not suited up since winter break, and the Hornets might be without him as a result.

“We’re a good j.v. team right now,” Novato head coach Glen Matthews said. “We have much more depth. Last year, we were giving up 24-30 points a meet due to forfeits. This year, we might only give up 6.”

Novato’s increased depth is partly a result of a much larger girls’ team. While Kristina Koenning has moved on to college, Novato’s girls’ wrestling team remains stronger than ever, with four girls wrestling this year. The best of the bunch is Courtney Madson, who already boasts an 18-3 record this year after winning the Napa Valley Classic last weekend.

The Mustangs, on the other hand, will have their share of forfeits. Losing Alvarado certainly didn’t help. Afterwards, Donaldson was grim, but he’d seen season-ending injuries before. “It sucks,” Donaldson said, “But that’s just part of wrestling.”

Wrestling report

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Top finish for Washougal

Overshadowed by Heritage's convincing team win at the Clark County Championships was the impressive performance by Washougal.

The Class 2A Panthers placed second overall with a 149.5 points just ahead of 4A Mountain View and in front of field loaded with 4A and 3A schools.

Juniors Daniel McElhaney (125) and Trenton Shelby (275) captured county titles to lead the Panthers, and Nick Biron was finished second by one point to two-time county champion Donavon Cunningham of Heritage.

"This is one of our highest Clark County finishes in school history," Washougal coach John Carver told the Camas-Washougal Post-Record. "We're extremely proud of our kids for delivering that effort. Finishing second to Heritage is a proud accomplishment for our program."

Females fare well

Two of the six boxes on the award podium were occupied by females during the 103-pound ceremony.

Camas senior Melissa Watkins received runner-up recognition, the highest honor ever awarded to a girl at the Clark County Championships.

"It's really great," Watkins said. "It's not as nice as winning first. It would have been nice to take first in my last year."

Watkins has placed fourth in the tournament the past two years. This season she advanced to the finals where she fell to Skyview's Levi Buchan, 10-1.

Columbia River senior Sara Rowen finished fourth, the first time she placed.

"I'm glad I put in the practice time, and I'm glad it paid off," she said.