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U.S. wrestlers get international test

No. 3 Panthers prowl to CIF State meet

By Kenny Cress / Sports Writer 1/31/08

Coughlin senior balancing wrestling, dancing

Coughlin senior balancing wrestling, dancing

By Dave Rosengrant drosengrant@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter 1/31/08

Ariel Johnson goes through wrestling moves with teammate Anas Mahmoud during a recent practice. Johnson is the only female wrestler in the Wyoming Valley Conference. DON CAREY photos/THE TIMES LEADER

WILKES-BARRE – Midway through a recent practice, Coughlin’s Ariel Johnson got frustrated because her hair kept falling out of its ponytail.

Unlike many teenage girls, the Crusader senior wasn’t worried about her appearance. And it took place during a practice in which you won’t find many girls of any age.

Johnson was aggravated about her hair because it kept getting in the in the way of her possibly executing a perfect move and notching a pin on fellow Crusader wrestler Anas Mahmoud.

That’s right. In a sport dominated by males, Johnson is the only female wrestler in the Wyoming Valley Conference.

“She’s got a great sense of humor and is very mature,” said Coughlin head coach Steve Stahl. “We’ve kicked kids off the team and she’s still here drilling every day. That says something about the way she is.”

The time-consuming demands of wrestling on the high school level haven’t stopped Johnson from pursuing another passion – dancing.

The Wilkes-Barre resident has been dancing as a ballerina for 13 years. She is a former member of the NEPA Academy of Dance in Edwardsville and is part of the Dave Ragnacci Studio in Scranton.

While wrestling offers intensity with every practice and match, dancing takes place in a relaxed atmosphere, says Johnson.

“Dancing is the best feeling in the world,” she said. “I’m a dancer and a wrestler and it is two totally different things. But it kind of equals each other out because of my balance and flexibility. That helps me (in wrestling).”

Pushing her limits

As a young student at Pittston Area, Johnson always joked with her friends about joining the wrestling team because she wanted to be involved in a sport.

When she moved to Wilkes-Barre in seventh grade, Johnson thought about wrestling every once in a while. But it never went any further.

She tried diving for the Coughlin swim team when she entered high school, but that sport didn’t offer what she was looking for.

“(Diving) isn’t hard enough for me,” she said. “I like to be pushed over my limits and (wrestling) definitely does it for me.”

Pushing herself is exactly what she has done. While a handful of boys failed to make it through the season, Johnson has made it through every practice. Cracking the Crusaders’ starting lineup has been tough because the Crusaders have three wrestlers at 130 pounds. She has wrestled only a handful of varsity matches and her lone victory came via forfeit.

But Johnson hasn’t backed down from any challenges. Despite being eventually pinned early in the first period, she wasn’t afraid to compete against Crestwood’s Jake O’Hara, a District 2 Class 3A champion who finished third at the Northeast Regional Tournament and placed eighth at the PIAA Championships last year.

“We told Jake that if we lost the toss, there was a chance he was going to wrestle her,” Crestwood coach Darren Testa said. “He just took it like any other match. There’s someone out there and he has to wrestle.”

Johnson, who has won awards as a dancer, will most likely get a chance to compete for a championship at the District 2 Junior Varsity Tournament on Feb. 15-16 at GAR High School.

A determined person

Though she might make some male counterparts feel uncomfortable because they are not familiar with wrestling against a female, one thing is certain – she will be ready for whatever comes her way.

“The experience of being in a totally different setting and being a girl, you would think I would get flustered from people saying stuff,” said Johnson. “But I don’t let that bother me when some people say ‘She’s not as tough as a guy, she won’t make it.’ I want to prove them wrong, that I can do it, so I get extra motivation.

“It proves that I’m strong and I know that I can do it and stick with it. I’m not a quitter at all. I’m not going to let any hard practice or anybody in school keep me from doing what I want to do. I never thought of (quitting). I’m a very determined person.”

Johnson has hopes of attending DeSales University in the fall to study dancing -- even though the university doesn’t have a wrestling program and she would like to continue in the sport.

Even if she doesn’t get to wrestle after high school and continues to excel as a ballerina, one thing is certain: She will be the toughest competitor on any dance stage.

A ‘big’ deal

Gender isn’t the issue for De Soto’s only female wrestler

Joel Reichenberger

January 31, 2008, 12:00 a.m.

Updated: January 30, 2008, 4:35 p.m.

De Soto junior Kristy Self puts the squeeze on her opponent Saturday at a wrestling tournament in Atchison. Self, the team’s only girl, has been wrestling in the 103-pound division. Enlarge photo — Photo by Joel Reichenberger

There’s one fact that makes wrestling a struggle for Kristy Self and it has nothing to do with a pronoun.

Self, the only female wrestler on this year’s De Soto team, stands out. She’s the one with the longest hair. She’s also easily the shortest one, and it’s that which makes her presence on the Wildcats’ varsity wrestling squad remarkable.

“I’ve always loved wrestling, but getting back into it after four years has been difficult considering I’m so small,” she said.

The De Soto junior stands 5-foot tall and weighs in at 90 pounds — 93 if she’s holding something heavy or her coach is secretly depressing the back of the scale. In either case, it doesn’t help her when she’s out on the mat.

Self has been serving as the team’s varsity 103-pound wrestler for much of the season. Actually one of the more experienced Cats to show up for the first day of practice, she quickly earned her way on to the squad thanks to a catalog of moves and techniques she still had stored in her head from years wrestling in middle school.

She dipped down to junior varsity for a few weeks, but returned to the show when the Cats’ other 103-pounder, freshman Alex Heffner, couldn’t make several meets due to illness.

Self first picked up the sport from her brothers, but struggled to stick with it as her family moved. She’s already attended five high schools — De Soto twice and three on Maui in Hawaii.

Success was never the problem. Self joined a team in Basehor when her family last lived in De Soto and cruised through her weight class.

“I went to sub-district and won first, when to district and won second and went to state,” she said. “This was against guys at the time. There wasn’t a girls association like there is now. I wrestled for two years with that club before we moved away.”

Self’s ability to continue wrestling was in doubt even before the family moved, however.

A thyroid problem slowed her growth so much that she couldn’t even dream of trying out for the high school team during her first stop in De Soto. She tipped the scales at 65 pounds when she was a freshman before transferring to a Maui school.

The miracles of modern medicine have helped her overcome the most severe problems. In addition to the 25 pounds she’s put on in the last three years, Self said she’s grown a foot.

When she finally returned to De Soto to start her junior year, wrestling at the high school was finally realistic.

“Her biggest issue is she is little,” De Soto coach Shannon Sawner said. “She’s beat some people and has some wins. She pinned a kid last week from Osawatomie.

“It isn’t any different dealing with her. She works at least as hard as all the guys, and harder than some.”

Still, Self said she has to do things better. That’s partly because she’s the only girl, and partly because it’s the only way she can win.

She is almost always matched up against someone bigger than she is, someone most likely stronger as well. She counters those advantages by playing to what strengths she does have.

Self rarely voluntarily takes the action to the mat, instead locking her opponent upright with her hands, circling and waiting for an opportunity to attack.

When she does, her movements are precise. She gives slack in her arms and drops to a knee, her quick right arm darting for an opponents’ leg.

It’s fast and it’s as fundamentally sound and precise as anyone else on the team.

“It’s extremely difficult being so low in a weight class because you can usually pick someone else in your class up,” Self said. “Wrestling people 10 pounds heavier means you have to work on technique and speed a lot more.

“I try to stay locked longer because it’s hard for them to lift me. If you stay locked, it helps wear them out.”

Even following every textbook to the letter can only do so much. Strength and size give any opponent an opportunity to correct a mistake, and the lack thereof disallows Self any similar second chance.

She knows she can get better, faster and more precise. She said she needs to learn her moves better, rehearse the right way in and out of wrestling’s many pretzel situations.

Her size will always make her a unique athlete — it all but rules out the most popular female sports like volleyball and basketball. She still has dreams, however.

She plans to continue refining her moves, grips, holds and strength to the point where she can tackle a college scholarship.

“I just got back into it, so I’m still improving,” Self said. “I believe I can do it if I keep with it.

“I’ve been looking into women’s program’s at colleges. A lot of those scholarships aren’t being utilized and I’d like to try and make it.”

The best part — women’s college wrestling comes with a 98 pound weight class.

Staff Writer

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Pictures and Audio

Reidsville's Briana Maynard wrestles West Stokes' Chris Pruitt in the 130-weigh class. Maynard is one of three female wrestlers in high schools in Rockingham County. Robert Ross Staff Photographer

They’ve heard it all - the snickers, the jokes and the teasing.

But McMichael’s Michelle Wilson, Reidsville’s Briana Maynard and Rockingham’s Lauren Payne knows it comes with the territory.

Just some added motivation, they say.

“A lot of people think you can’t do it and you want to prove yourself more,” said Payne, who is 4-13 in her first year with the Cougars. “At times I think the ragging is funny, but at times it gets me ticked off. It makes me want to wrestle more and take my aggression out on my opponent.”

Maynard got some odd looks as she entered the gym in her cheerleading uniform before Tuesday night’s Reidsville-West Stokes match. She has posed as part cheerleader/part wrestler this season, but she wasn’t there to cheer. Instead, she quickly dressed into her wrestling attire in search of her first victory of the season. She didn’t win, but she frustrated her opponent, Chris Pruitt, in the 130-pound weight class. She lost by decision; it was her first non-pin defeat of the season.

After the match, she quickly changed back into her cheerleading uniform.

“She is amazing,” Reidsville coach Mike Armstrong said. “She does a little bit of everything, including cheerleading and wrestling. She is a different person when she gets on that mat. He (Pruitt) wasn’t happy because he couldn’t pin her. Briana gave him fits and refused to get pinned. He told me after the match that she was one of the toughest opponents he has faced this year.”

Maynard said technique is the hardest part of wrestling, but she is getting better each day.

“Anyone can have the strength, but if you don’t know what to do with it, it’s useless,” said Maynard, a junior. “Because, if you know what body part to pull or how to turn someone over at what time, they certainly have the advantage.”

It didn’t take long for Wilson, who has been wrestling for the past six years, to become known. She had an impressive start, taking first place at 103 pounds in the county tournament. She went 2-0 in the junior varsity division, which included two pins.

“I was like, ‘Wow,’ because it was so awesome,” she said. “I just didn’t want to get pinned. I wasn’t worried about losing that much. I just didn’t want to get pinned.”

Wilson was a respectable 8-11 heading into Wednesday night’s match against Southern Guilford. In an early season dual match, she suffered her first loss with a pin in fewer than 20 seconds. Wilson saw the defeat as one of many learning experiences she would face along the way.

“I was like, ‘This isn’t going to be easy’,” she said. “I know that guys don’t want to lose to a girl.”

It hasn’t been easy for any of the three wrestlers. Heading into each match, the trio knows the majority of their opponents are going to be more experienced, stronger and more physical.

For McMichael coach Jon Bullins, who has coached three other female wrestlers, it is a learning process - not only for Wilson, but for most female wrestlers at the high school level.Dyami Souza

“I feel like she is at a disadvantage every time she steps on the mat,” Bullins said. “In almost every match, she is weaker than her opponent. In every match, the guy will wrestle her harder because they don’t want to lose to a girl. She has lost a couple of close matches this year because of just that reason.”

Wilson, who has been involved in wrestling for the past six years – including youth programs and middle school - got a unique experience at the Southern Alamance Duals, facing a female wrestler from the host school. At first, she thought it might be an easy match. She then learned her opponent had eight years of wrestling experience.

“I knew she would be strong and, yes, she was a girl, but so am I,” Wilson said. “I couldn’t take her lightly.”

A second-period pin gave Wilson a perfect 1-0 record against female wrestlers.

One of the first obstacles the girls had to overcome was getting accepted by their teammates. Their hard work and dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“She works hard every day in practice, just like a guy,” Devan McCain of Reidsville said of Maynard. “She is like one of the guys. She never stops working and goes all out. One thing that impressed me is that she is physical and doesn’t complain.”

Unlike Wilson and Payne, Maynard had never been part of a wrestling team. Wilson was a member of the team at Western Rockingham Middle School for two years while Payne was a manager at Rockingham Middle.

Wrestling is still fairly new to her, but she is picking it up.

“It seemed like something new and is something I haven’t tried yet,” said Maynard, who actually didn’t tell her mother she was wrestling until after she started practice. “I actually thought about going out last year, but was definitely going out this year. It was something I thought I might be good at.”

Despite having no wins in her first year, Armstrong has noticed an improvement.

“She really has matured in wrestling,” said Armstrong. “Briana has a lot more to her arsenal than most first-year wrestlers and has better technique than she had than when she started.”

Payne describes the atmosphere in Wentworth as a family-like - she views her male teammates as brothers. And her “brothers” haven’t always taken too kindly to the reaction and actions by opposing wrestlers and coaches.

At a weekend tournament, one opposing coach told Payne during the post-match handshake that she was too pretty to be wrestling.

“That didn’t make me happy, and I was a bit angry,” she said. “I believe he was picking and trying to be nice at the same time, but it still got me mad.”

Following a defeat, Payne got an unexpected question to go along with the after-match handshake.

“After he pinned me, he helped me up and asked me for my number,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. All the guys took up for me on that and weren’t happy with the guy.”

RHCS head coach Robert Lamberth - who has coached only two girls (including Payne) in his 28 years as wrestling coach - and his team look out for their lone Lady Cougar.

She doesn’t get special treatment when it comes to workouts and practice. Once she steps on that mat, she is one of the guys.

“She is a wrestler,” Lamberth said. “She’s not a girl and she’s not a guy. She is a wrestler. She knows that, but she works real hard but is a quick learner. She’s only a ninth-grader but drills her moves real well.”

Wilson describes her teammates as “close-knit” and “family” and has one certain fan that pulls for her.

Her brother, senior Alex Wilson, helped the Phoenix to the 2-A state dual team championship a year ago. He isn’t easy on Michelle.

“He is more of a pain,” Michelle said, laughing. “He is always making me drill harder, but I don’t mind it. It’s cool.”

All three girls say they intend to return next season.

Pins & Needling

Souza, Other Girls Grapple With Stereotypes

WINDHAM HIGH WRESTLER Dyami Souza, a senior, is 11-13 in matches this season -- all against boys. (MARK MIRKO / January 22, 2008)

At first, Dyami Souza's mom wasn't thrilled that her daughter wanted to be a wrestler.

"She wanted to be a boxer and I thought this was a little better than being a boxer," Linda Souza said with a laugh. "At least she'll have a face left."

So Linda let her wrestle. Five years later, Dyami is a senior starter at 112 pounds for Windham High, No. 7 in the state coaches poll.

Fifteen years ago, Jennifer Ottiano became the first — and only — girl to place in the top six in a state championship meet. Ottiano, who also wrestled for Windham, was fifth in Class L at 112. A longtime competitor in judo, she was the rare girl who could compete with the boys at the time.

This year, 89 girls are wrestling on boys teams in Connecticut and a handful of those girls are competitive.

Jessica Bennett, a 103-pound senior at Montville, is considered the top female wrestler in the state. She finished sixth in the ECC tournament last year and is 22-6 this season.

"She's one of the hardest-working kids I have in the room," Montville coach Gary Wilcox said.

It's hard to tell how many high school girls are wrestling nationally since many states do not distinguish between boys and girls when reporting numbers. But there are at least 5,000.

Souza was the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association collegiate division champion at 114 pounds in 2005. She has applied to three colleges in Colorado and hopes to train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where Terry Steiner, a former Iowa wrestler, is the full-time national women's coach.

Texas, Washington and Hawaii have girls-only state tournaments and California holds sectional girls tournaments. There are five colleges that offer women's wrestling, and in 2004 women's wrestling was introduced at the Olympics.

In Connecticut, there are plenty of co-ed youth programs. But Roger Shaw, director of women's wrestling for USA Wrestling CT, said he is working toward girls getting a chance to wrestle against girls. Right now, he said, there aren't enough girls to hold local tournaments.

"Things have come a good ways since Jenn Ottiano's day, but not far enough," Shaw said. "There has been a change in attitude for the better with the powers-that-be [in wrestling]. In the community at large, there's still an ongoing battle — but at least you've got a 50-50 shot of finding someone who is accepting and supportive of girls who want to wrestle. There is still no lack of good ol' boy coaches out there who don't think girls belong in the wrestling room."

Most girls, like Souza, are introduced to the sport through their brothers. All five of Souza's siblings, including her two brothers, started wrestling in a youth program in Killingly.

Only Dyami stuck with it.

"It's something about when you wrestle, it's attached to you, it's inside of you," said Souza, who transferred to Windham after wrestling her first three years at Killingly. "It's something you can control, and it's always going to be there. I could never, ever leave it."

Souza's record is 11-13, many of her losses coming at 119 early in the season. She dislocated her right elbow last year, tearing ligaments, and it has taken time to come back from that. It also took a while to drop to 112.

"It's hard," she said. "The boys can cut like seven pounds in a night, no problem, or lose five pounds in practice, and I'll come out losing 1 1/2 pounds. The girls, we just hang onto our water weight."

According to national high school federation rules, girls must retain 12 percent body fat, unless they have a doctor's note. Boys are allowed to retain 7 percent. Wilcox said Bennett was able to go under 12 percent with a doctor's permission.

Girls also have to be mentally tough. Attitudes may be changing, but it's a slow process, and the bottom line is that the boys do not want to lose to a girl — especially by a pin.

Some don't even want to compete against a girl.

"It's hard on a kid if he loses to a female wrestler, because I'm sure he'll get razzed by his teammates," said Windham coach Pat Risley. "But they don't realize how much time and effort she puts in and that she deserves more respect."

At a dual meet tournament in Florida last month, Souza said she was verbally abused by an opponent.

"I don't know who he was, but he was swearing at me and his whole team on the sidelines was yelling at me the whole match," Souza said. "Whoever won my match would win the whole thing. The better I did, the worse he would get.

"It was really close and I lost. If he had one more caution, I would have won the match. He got a lot of cautions, but they never awarded any points for it. I don't think they're used to seeing girls [wrestle] out there, I guess, wherever he was from."

She has heard coaches yell at their wrestlers, "I can't believe you just lost to a girl." One coach, she said, told his wrestler to quit after he lost to her. At a tournament at Middletown this season, there were three forfeits after she won a decision by technical fall in the first round.

"Sometimes, it's hard to watch," Linda Souza said. "The guys come out and they wrestle harder than they would against a guy. They wrestle her right from the whistle. With the guys, they might dance around a bit. She has to be on top of it all the time."

Souza can handle it.

"She got an elbow to the eye once in a match," Risley said. "There was a lot of swelling. It ballooned right up. She was going to finish that match. She wasn't going to stop. No way.

"The next day in practice, it was pretty swollen. It didn't stop her. Then she fractured her nose. I got a mask for her, but she said, 'Nope, I don't want it.' She didn't miss a beat."

Bennett is the same way. Bacon Academy junior 112-pounder Ryan Quinn wrestled her and won in a match last season.

"She was really tough," Quinn said. "They have great hips. It's impossible to pin them. It's hard wrestling them."

And if he had lost?

"Maybe for that day, yeah [it would be bad]," he said. "But then you get back into the wrestling room and you keep wrestling, no big deal. Most of the girls that do wrestle are just as tough as the boys or tougher."

Contact Lori Riley at lriley@courant.com.

womens-wrestling-at-collegiate-club-level

 The NCWA, the club wrestling governing body, has announced that they will start a women's division for the 07-08 season. This is exciting news for fans and advocates of women's wrestling.  Of course, any new opportunities to compete will help the sport grow, but this will allow a place for women who have started wrestling in high school, but aren't successful enough to earn a spot at a place like Cumberland or Missouri Valley. Wrestling will no longer be limited to the select few ladies who are at the top, much like it is for the men.The NCWA also has a bold plan to have 300 schools competing by the year 2012. (According to the press release, they not only have a bold Goal, they have a bold Vision. Their Goal and Vision are so bold that they break the Rules of Capitalizing Nouns)   With just over 5,000 girls wrestling in high school, it won't be easy to make sure that that more than half of them continue wrestling in college, especially since club teams are usually self-governed and self-funded. With the Olympics next year, women’s wrestling is sure to enjoy another surge next year.  The NCWA needs to make sure that they capitalize on that.    

Melissa Simmons pinned Venus Barron on Tuesday.

H.S. Wrestling: Montville's female wrestler as tough as she is smart

Dec 26, 2007 @ 12:20 AM

By MARC ALLARD

Norwich Bulletin

Tali Greener/Norwich Bulletin Tali Greener/Norwich Bulletin Montville's Jess Bennett, top, holds down Killingly's Tom Lombardi in the during the final rounds of Killingly Christmas Duals on Saturday. Bennett isn't just won of the best female wresters, she's one of the best wrestlers at 103 pounds — period.

DANIELSON — Academics getting in the way of athletics.

It’s a parent’s dream.

You see, Montville High School junior wrestler Jessica Bennett is ranked No. 1 — not in her weight class, but in her junior class. She’s just as worried about that, maybe even more concerned, than the fact that she has the chance to finish the highest a girl has ever finished in a state championship meet.

To do that, according to Montville coach Gary Wilcox, Bennett has to finish in the top three in Class S in February.

“Do I think she can do it? Yes, I do, but I don’t underestimate or overestimate,” Wilcox said. “She is a girl and, in that sense, she doesn’t have the muscularity and the testosterone that the boys have but her technique, her vision and her dedication are better than most kids in high school.”

“I would like to finish as high as I possibly can. If that’s better than fourth, great. If it’s third, second or first, that would be as much as I could achieve, but I want to set the bar high and if I fall short, as long as I put forth my best effort, I’m happy,” Bennett said.

Aspirations are high not only in her sport but also in her studies, and that has actually been a bit of a problem early this wrestling season.

“Jessica has three advanced placement courses and she studies till 1 a.m.,” Wilcox said. “She needs to find a happy medium and start getting a little more rest because she’s not quite as sharp as she should be. Some of that is studying and grades have to come first, but I think, at this point here, she’s ready to wrestle.”

Bennett has been wrestling since she was about 7 years old, inspired by her brother, Dylan, who is now a senior on the Indians squad.

“He’s been an idol for me ever since I was little. He’s a very good role model, very dedicated athlete and good student. He always puts in a good effort and when he started (to wrestle), it looked like fun and I tried it and here I am,” Jess said.

If only every parent could be so lucky.

Kimberly Bennett has two children who like one another and like school work as well as athletics.

“Dylan and Jessica are as close as a brother and sister can be,” Kimberly Bennett said just before a match between Montville and Killingly last Saturday. “He hasn’t wrestled to the level that she has, but he certainly inspired her and he certainly has been a great sport. She earned her varsity letter before him and he’s never been upset about that. He’s only cheered her on.”

Her mother’s daughter

Not that Kimberly has always been that supportive of her daughter’s decision to wrestle into high school, but it was the mom’s own words that got her into trouble with the daughter. Jess remembered something her mother said to her early on and it was an answer that Kimberly found hard to refute and, she said, now has the gray hairs to show for it.

“Jessica, when she first wanted to wrestle, reminded me when I told her that she couldn’t, that I was the one who told her that this is a little bit of a man’s world and don’t do something you want to just because you’re a girl. She reminded me of that, so I signed off on the deal and I support it, but it’s very hard,” Kimberly said.

The logic is even harder to argue because this is a young girl with a vision as she knows what she wants and is working hard to get it.

“Everything I do in life is to put myself in a position where I can do as well as I can personally and give back to society. I hope to use wrestling to further my education, become part of a women’s team if I can, and get a higher education and get a decent job,” Jess said.
Another good answer and one you might expect from a student with a 4.4 GPA.

Jess, who weighs only 100 pounds, took her lumps last season when Wilcox had to bump her up. Nick Perry was locked in at 103 as he was a better wrestler and took second in Class M. That didn’t mean she didn’t wrestle; it meant she wrestled at 112.

“I told her, ‘Jessica, you’re going to take a pounding here. Don’t get pinned, be tough and hang in.’ I don’t cut kids slack whether they’re female or anything, I have high expectations. My expectations to her last year was that she was going to go through the fire to get tough and we’re still putting her through the fire. It’s tough on her because I treat her like every other wrestler, she gets no breaks.”

Losing to a girl

On Saturday, Bennett was the one not giving breaks as she scored a major decision win over Killingly wrestler Tom Lombardi, 9-1.

Lombardi wasn’t Bennett’s first victim and won’t be her last, and the young wrestler took it in stride.

“If you’re really man enough, you know that a girl is just another person and it shouldn’t even bother your self-esteem,” Lombardi said.

“It was my first time against her and I was pretty surprised. She’s best at the legs, she kept my legs controlled the whole time and I really couldn’t move,” he added.

Bennett said she really doesn’t know how it feels for a guy to lose to a girl since she isn’t in those shoes, but she hopes they mirror Lombardi’s attitude.

“I hope they see me as another wrestler, not a girl,” she said. “I want them to realize that I’m a female athlete, but, at the same time, treat me as an equal.”

That, for the most part, has been the case, although Wilcox said it’s a tough question when asked if guys hated to lose to a girl.

“There’s a respect because all of the fighting arts carry with them a respect just for doing it,” Wilcox said. “Boys are smart enough to know  that if Jess was wrestling 125, that’s a whole different testosterone-filled category. At 103, the guys are smaller, they’re probably not hitting their full stride, so I don’t think it’s a big thing because the guys get stronger and bigger while Jess will probably be at 103 next year, too.”

On the horizon

As for the future, beyond the state championship meets this season and her senior year, Bennett hopes it means wrestling and studying to be a veterinarian.

“There are more every year,” Bennett said when it comes to women’s college wrestling programs. “It’s one of those things that are right on the edge. We need to push the envelope as far as getting more people to participate. It recently became an Olympic sport, so there’s a lot of opportunity out there and it’s coming to the attention of more and more people.”

Jess has her eyes set on one school that fits her dream criteria, the University of Northern Michigan.

“That school offers a pre-vet program and is also affiliated with the Olympic Education Center, so if she could do that, she would get everything she wants in life and that’s what she’s focused on,” Kimberly  said.

That’s not only a dream for Jess, it’s one that is shared by her coach.

“What my hope is for her is that some coach in his right sense will give her a call and offer her some money because she’s that kind of kid that deserves a full ride,” Wilcox said. “She’s No.1 academically, she’s winning matches in the boys division, she would be a good find for any girls program and I’m hoping that happens.”

Farmingdale to reevaluate protocol for males wrestling females

BY LAURA ALBANESE |laura.albanese@newsday.com

3:36 PM EST, January 31, 2008

In the wake of a Farmingdale junior varsity wrestler refusing to compete against a girl, Farmingdale will reevaluate the school's protocol should a similar situation occur.

On Jan. 12, Tony Ann Nelson, of Wingate in Brooklyn, suited up to wrestle in the 96-weight class when her opponent, whom Farmingdale declined to identify, refused to wrestle her. Wingate was awarded a forfeit.

Farmingdale athletic director Jeanne Berkoski said "It's a touchy subject and we want to take our time and do what's in the best interest of our wrestlers." Berkoski said that she will speak to head coach Ken Garcia and junior varsity coach Darrin Simons about a consistent way to address the discomfort some of the male wrestlers have in competing against females.

Additionally, Berkoski said, they will investigate how other districts handle the issue. An option, she said, was the possibility of a courtesy call when a team plans to wrestle a girl. In Farmingdale's case, when the male wrestler approached Simmons and said he wasn't going to compete, Simmons could not and would not force him. "If a kid doesn't want to wrestle, you can't make him do it," Garcia said in a prior interview with Newsday.

The presence of females in wrestling is increasing. Farmingdale has had female wrestlers, including one currently at the middle school level, Berkoski said. Wingate, which was encouraged to start up a co-ed wrestling program by Beat the Streets, an amateur wrestling association that looks to foster future Olympic contenders, has a number of girls, said coach Steve Flanagan. They have four that compete regularly, including Nelson and Makeda Holder, who wrestles at 125 and has pinned male opponents, Flanagan said. They have three more that come to practice.

"New York City has more girl wrestlers than the Island," Flanagan said. "Long Island wrestling has been around awhile and it hasn't opened its doors to women [to the same extent] because it's been successful relying only on boys."

The PSAL has no guidelines that regulate co-ed wrestling but, said wrestling coordinator Larry Cantor, "PSAL supports female wrestling to the nth degree. A wrestler is a wrestler," regardless of gender, he said.