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The Mount Baker girls’ wrestling team got its push toward the state tournament started on the right foot with a sub-regional team championship Saturday at Juanita High School in Kirkland.
The Mountaineers scored 157 points to win the team title, 114 points ahead of second-place Lake Stevens. The team also sent seven girls to the finals and came out with two champions.
“Once you get that many to the finals, it’s like you’re wrestling an all-star team, so it’s kind of hard to win them all,” Mount Baker coach Ron Lepper said in a phone interview. “But it shows we’re advancing and it’s going to give us a good shot to get a good number to state.”
Defending state champion Ashlee Phy led the way for Mount Baker. Phy won the 145-pound championship with a 35-second pin over Skyline’s Alexis Willcher to improve to 25-1. All 25 wins have been by pin for Phy. Freshman Chloe Grafwallner won the 285-pound championship for Baker with a pin over Inglemoor’s Anna Detering.
Other finalists for the Mounties were Roxanne Rosas (103 pounds), Kristen Fogg (119), Lanay Newgard (125), Katie Newgard (130) and Alex Lepper (135) who had to injury default out of the finals with a shoulder injury.
Samantha Mount (112), Shanli Dillard (130) and Ashley Armstrong (160) all finished third on the day, Elena Gallegos (103) and Karina Rosas (112) both finished fourth and all will advance to next week. From there, the top five will advance to state.
“Obviously it was nice to get 12 girls through, it gives us a good shot next week,” Lepper said. “It might give us a chance to make some noise at state.” Mount Baker coach Clyde Blockley, who coaches the girls’ team when they travel separately from the boys, was named the sub-regional coach of the year.
High School girls wrestling is a relatively new idea in Tennessee, and a controversial one to some.
To others, it's just another sport.
With the absence of private schools at the State Wrestling Duals held at Clarksville High, girls wrestling teams from South Doyle, Soddy Daisy and Science Hill participated in the first girls wrestling state championship.
The three teams competed in a round-robin tournament, but only Soddy Daisy and Science Hill were eligible for the state championship after South Doyle didn't have enough wrestlers to qualify.
Soddy Daisy's Lady Trojans posted an impressive 36-12 victory over the Lady Hilltoppers to hoist the first girls state wrestling champion plaque.
"This is great," Soddy Daisy coach Steve Henry said. "Ever since (the TSSAA) came up with this tournament, that's what we wanted. This sport is the type of thing that, if it ever gets snowballing, then it can be great."
Henry isn't inexperienced when it comes to girls wrestling. Soddy Daisy has had girls wrestling for over a decade, but were forced to play local schools and inter-squad because the Tennessee Secondary School Athletics Association didn't sanction the sport.
"We have been wrestling Red Bank since the early 1990s," Henry said. "When we didn't have someone to play then we would wrestle against one another. We were excited when we were told that there would be a state championship, and Science Hill came down to wrestle us in a dual at the same time the boys did earlier this season."
For schools that do not have a girls wrestling team, young women are forced to tryout for the boys varsity squad. The situation, however, creates an awkward situation for boy teammates and opponents, alike.
"Some guys think it's a joke to wrestle a girl," said South Doyle senior Britney Heatherly, who has a 33-7 record as part of the boys varsity team. "But when they're looking up at the ceiling from the mat, and getting pinned by a girl, then they're not laughing anymore. Some guys are intimidated by it, but I just look at it as a chance for me to show what I can do."
Heatherly had the opportunity to learn under head coach Yvette Jaquish-Krase, who wrestled in the 103-pound division at her high school in Michigan before wrestling individually at Olivet College.
The South Doyle coach understands the obstacles in starting a girls wrestling program and the adversity that can arise.
"I was really surprised at the turnout by the girls," Jaquish-Krase said. "I think a lot of girls have to accept it before they can get up the courage to try it. A lot of girls are scared of wrestling a girl much bigger than they are because they don't understand the weight class aspect of it.
"And I have had a lot of resistance from parents most of all. I think once they all get used to the idea of girls wrestling then everything will progress."
The future of the sport for girls, however, lies in the hands of the schools, according to TSSAA director Ronnie Carter.
"It would be neat down the road to have both boys and girls wrestling, but that depends on the individual schools," Carter said. "It will depend on the coaches. Sports are built from the ground up. The sports don't begin with the TSSAA saying, 'This is a sport.' It starts with a few schools who have the sport and it grows until they demand that it be sanctioned."
For now, Henry and Science Hill coach Jeff Price have the girls wrestling market cornered. The rest is up to those who follow.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
BY SOMER
BREEZE, Columbian staff writer
WASHOUGAL - The Washougal girls wrestling team wanted to make a statement at the sub-regional tournament on Saturday.
The message was heard loud and clear.
The Panthers' depth led to the tournament host winning the all-classification tournament with a team score of 110 points.
Second-place La Center finished with 78 points, and Kelso took third with 66 points.
Washougal won the title despite winning only one of 10 individual titles, but the Panthers will advance more than one wrestler in three weight classes to Saturday's regional tournament at Tumwater.
The top four sub-regional placers advanced to next week's tournament, with nine wrestlers representing Washougal.
"One of our goals was to make some noise at whatever level we could," Washougal coach Heather Santos said. "The results showed that everyone tried their best for the team."
Sophomore Chelssea Eakins was the only Panther to win a title. Eakins pinned Battle Ground's Kaitlyn Regan in the championship at 145 pounds.
Sophomore Madelynn McIlwain pinned La Center's Lucy Kulla in the 112 semifinals. It was the first time McIlwain defeated her local rival. The sophomore finished second to Kelso's Emma Destromp.
Washougal's Sarah Thiesen, a foreign-exchange student from Germany and a first-year wrestler, got her first win of the season last week and since then has strung together a series of victories, leading to a second-place finish at 160.
Washougal teammates Miranda Berry and Colleen Wright faced each other for third and fourth place in the 125 class. Berry won with a 4-2 decision. It was the same scenario in the 135 third/fourth-place match, with a meeting between Panthers Courtney White and Adrianah Antonetti. White won by pin.
"I am so elated that the girls did so well," Santos said. "They worked hard all week."
The 103 finals featured state-ranked wrestlers Melissa Watkins from Camas and Sarah Rowen from Columbia River. Watkins, who finished second at the Clark County Championships against boys, won with an 8-0 decision over Rowen for the sub-regional title.
Rowen won the 103-pound division at the first girls wrestling state championship last year. Watkins did not participate in the girls postseason last year after just missing qualifying for the state boys tournament in 2006.
Santos predicts the two wrestlers will meet again in the state final match.
Hockinson's Kayla Keeler won the 135 match with a pin over La Center's Naomi Johnson. Jessica Sokolowski (125) and Christina Cox (103) both won titles for second-place La Center.
Unlike last year, the regional tournament will feature a 12-person bracket instead of eight.
The top five placers will advance to state, compared with three last year.
Some of the 1,000 people who auditioned Saturday in Boulder for an appearance on the re-envisioned NBC show "American Gladiators" were cheered on by their peers after completing a grueling gantlet of physical tests, while others were jeered as they hovered over nearby trash cans.
"We've had some pukers, but that's about it," said Randy Moyer, a medic hired by the show's producers to look after exhausted would-be contestants. "Most people take themselves to the very limit of exhaustion."
Auditions for the prime-time show -- a remake of the early 1990s concept that pits ordinary people against other amateur athletes and against muscular "Gladiators" in physical tests of agility, speed and strength for a grand prize of $100,000 -- drew a massive line of people that wrapped outside the University of Colorado Student Recreation Center.
Producers are searching this week in seven states for contestants to appear on the show next season and made Boulder their second stop following initial tryouts held in Los Angeles.
"Not a lot of shows come here, so we wanted to try it out and see what kind of peopleare in this part of the country," said Jason Skweres, an NBC casting director in charge of Saturday's auditions.
He said Boulder, and Colorado in general, has a reputation for athletic residents and that's what the show is looking for.
"We look for contestants who are the all-American 'Average Joe' who is in good physical shape and is excited about being able to compete against a Gladiator," Skweres said.
Skweres said every person who showed up Saturday to try out for the show got to go through the entire audition process, which included a 28-page written questionnaire, photographs, a series of physical tests and private interviews with casting directors.
Doug Henderson, a 24-year-old Boulder resident who stood in line for six hours to audition, gasped for air after completing 23 pull-ups in 30 seconds, more pushups than he could count in another 30 seconds, running through a speed-rope course and finally sprinting 10 times between a set of orange cones.
Still, the U.S. Marine reservist took the pain in stride.
"How many chances do you get to try out for something like this?" said Henderson, who also brought his twin brother along to spice up his so-called "back story" for producers to consider.
Stories of inspiration or perseverance were also what producers were searching for in Boulder, and that's just what 26-year-old Kaci Lyle offered.
Lyle trained at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs from 2002 until last year as part of her bid to reach the games as part of the women's wrestling team.
She recently moved to Boulder, she said, after surviving a serious blood clot that lodged in her lung and essentially shot down her chances of competing at the 2008 Olympics. But it didn't stop her from auditioning Saturday.
"They said my career was over with and that I was done," Lyle said. "It's been hard after all that happened."
Her story inspired casting directors to let her bypass the line.
"I'm going to push as hard as I can," she said, just before starting the trials.
Casting directors would not say how many people they planned to call back for a second audition to be held in Denver early next week.
"American Gladiators" airs at 8 p.m. Mondays on NBC
 Concussions forced Vallejo High's Angie Miller to give up wrestling this year. Now she is pursuing her goal of becoming a firefighter. (Stacey J. Miller/Times-Herald) |
Miller wasn't interested in sulking or feeling sorry for herself because she had come so far only to fall short. She instead was focused on giving herself the opportunity once again to triumph. All she wanted was to get back.
It was April 1, 2007, and Miller had just endured one of the most arduous, exhausting matches of her life, the 138-pound title match at the United States Girls Wrestling Association National Championships. Quadruple overtime. More than eight minutes of wrestling for the right to be called a national champion.
Miller, then a Vallejo High junior who had claimed an individual state championship just a couple months earlier, lost the national title match that day 8-4 to Veronica Larson of Illinois. Yes, it was a heartbreaker. No, it didn't feel good. But Miller wouldn't allow the negatives of her final match to ruin a spectacular season. She was certain she would get back.
"It hurts a lot, but I've been working hard all year and it really showed," Miller said shortly after the tough loss. "I'll come back next year with a vengeance."
Little did Miller know then, when she uttered those words, that she wouldn't get the chance to fulfill her proclamation. That she would be forced to make what her father, Shawn Miller, called her "first, big grown-up decision."
"It was sad for what happened, but I am so proud of her for making a tough decision," Shawn Miller said. "It ended her career. But to think 'I'm only 17, and once I'm done with high school my goal is to be a firefighter.' She had to focus on what was important. I can't say enough about how I'm so proud and so sad for her."
The incident and the decision
Angie Miller had been a wrestler since she was a seventh grader at Springstowne Middle School. She had been hit in the head many times before but never like this.
Miller was at a wrestling camp in August at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., when, at a night practice, her head bounced off the mat hard. It didn't prevent her from finishing the session. She practiced the next day, and that's when everything changed at the morning practice. Miller was training with her partner when she received a kick to the back of the head - the soft spot, she says, in between the base of her head and top of her spine - from a wrestler training next to her.
Miller got up and finished the rest of the training session, but she didn't feel right. She felt dizzy, she felt woozy, and with every bump to the head it felt like a bolt of lightning struck in her brain.
"I really couldn't stand on my own much," Miller recalled.
Turns out, Miller continued wrestling with a concussion, which trainers believed she likely suffered after initially being kicked in the head. Miller called home that night to tell her dad what had happened. He was worried.
"I told her I didn't want to get the phone call saying that she didn't get up off the mat," Shawn Miller said. "My worst nightmare was that."
Angie Miller returned to Vallejo the next day - a week before the camp concluded - but the pain remained. She remembers having "really bad headaches" and her head twitching uncontrollably in her sleep.
That prompted a visit to the doctor, who referred Miller to a neurologist in Oakland. Miller saw a few doctors, actually, and after a cat scan and MRI didn't reveal any specific abnormalities, doctors suggested she no longer wrestle.
Miller had a folk style tournament the next day and competed anyway. But the following week in practice, when she was getting up from a drill, she received a foot to the top of her head. It felt like it did in Colorado all over again.
That's when Miller began seriously feeling she would have to give up wrestling. But before she made any decisions, she wanted confirmation from friends and family.
"Everybody was telling me 'You've got to be thinking about you right now, what's got to be best for you, not the team. Because in the long run you're the one that's going to be affected by it,' " Miller recalled. "I took that into consideration and as I was thinking the night I decided not to wrestle anymore I was sitting there thinking 'They're all right. If I don't do this for me, I could end up in a lot of trouble or a lot of pain later.' I was thinking about what would help the team and not so much me."
As if the pain wasn't enough, that, right there, confirmed Miller's feelings. She unwillingly made the decision she dreaded.
"The headaches were getting worse, and I was getting dizzy as I was wrestling," Miller said. "It wasn't getting any better, and so I finally decided to give it a rest and not wrestle anymore."
Thinking about her future
Miller didn't want to give up wrestling, which is why she initially went against the doctors' recommendation to stop.
"I didn't want to feel like I had quit on my team or anything," Miller said. "I wanted to still be out there and help my team out."
But Miller eventually figured that she had no choice but to sacrifice wrestling - not just for her safety, for her future. Ever since she was a little girl, Miller wanted to become a firefighter. She understood that to do so would require an impeccable medical history.
"I couldn't have it on my medical records to be severely injured," Miller said. "I can't have any head problems that are really severe."
In essence, Miller couldn't risk her dream.
Miller was 8 or 9 years old to the best of her memory when her dad, who has been friends with members of Vallejo's fire department for years, took her and her sisters down to the fire station for the first time. That's when the seeds of becoming s firefighter were planted.
Miller remembers sitting in the truck, putting on the gear and masks for the first time, and loving every minute of it. She also remembers seeing a female working at the station, which struck a chord with her because she never thought she would see a girl firefighter.
"I was never into being too girly and when I saw that I thought 'Man, that could be me,' " Miller said. "I thought it was the coolest thing in the world."
Since giving up wrestling five months ago, Miller has focused solely on fulfilling her lifelong dream. She recently began a cadet program with the Vallejo fire department, where she spends three hours each week receiving hands on firefighter training. Miller is the only female of nine cadets, which shouldn't be a surprise considering her personality.
"I've just always been rough and tough and now that I've come up into high school everybody knows that," Miller said. "There aren't that many girls that you can say they're still a woman but have male qualities to be strong and not afraid."
While female firefighters are few and far in between, those who know Miller aren't surprised by her breaking the mold.
"She's strong and physical and tough and not afraid. There aren't a lot of things that put fear into her," said Mike Minahen, her former wrestling coach at Vallejo. "And in being a fireman, that's what you have to have. You have to be willing to put yourself on the line, and I think that suits Angie's personality well."
Said Shawn Miller: "I think it's right up her ally. She loves to help people. That's something she was born and raised with, thinking of somebody else first. She's always been that way. I can hardly wait for the day she calls me and says 'Dad, I just ran in and saved somebody.' Or 'We saved this house from burning down.' I know she will do really well in what she does as a firefighter."
Still part of the team
Angie Miller yelled fervently, imploring, coaching, willing her teammates to victory during the Vallejo-Hogan dual meet last week.
"She got home and her head was killing her," Shawn Miller said.
Technically, Miller isn't on the Apaches squad. But emotionally she has been part of the team all season. It was evident that wouldn't change from the moment she gave up wrestling in this, her senior, season, when she unselfishly gave the Vallejo program a gift.
Much to her surprise, Miller received plenty of financial support from friends, family and strangers alike, who donated nearly $2,300 to her last year, which allowed Miller to do so much last summer. She went to Colorado Springs to train at the Olympic Training Center, went to Fargo, N.D., where she took seventh place at Freestyle Nationals, and attended a week-long firefighter camp in Napa.
"I'm so grateful for all that," Miller said, "because if nobody helped I wouldn't have gone to as many events as I did. It would've been difficult to even try to."
Miller didn't use all the money given to her and said she ended up with $1,200 leftover, money she could've kept for herself. Dedication to Vallejo wouldn't allow that.
Familiar with the financial hardship of traveling to try and achieve high goals, Miller decided to do something else with it. She handed it over to the Vallejo wrestling program to assist any girls who couldn't afford to pay for nationals this year.
"My girls team kind of became my family at school, and I felt it was the right thing to do," said Miller, who's now saving money to attend a firefighter camp this summer in Florida. "The program has given me so much, I figured it was the least I could do to give back to them. Granted, I could use it. But there's no way I could sit here and know that some of the girls aren't going to be able to raise the money to go to nationals."
The season has passed with Miller never once stepping foot on the mat to compete. It has killed her inside for the last five months that she couldn't help Vallejo win a fourth-straight state title. And it has bothered her that she won't get the chance to get back to the national championship match.
But at this point, she has found peace with herself and her decision, because now she's doing what she knows she was meant to do. She's already started living her dream.
"I really don't like the fact that I've had to sit on the sidelines, but I knew it was one of the best things for me," Miller said. "In the long run it'll be a lot better for me."
After struggling the past couple seasons, Americas captured its first girls title since 2003 and 2004 behind a "brand new" squad, Trailblazers coach Ken Jury said.
"We had a lot of girls come out this year, they worked hard this year and put it together at the right time," Jury said. "We knew we had a chance, but it was a very pleasant surprise. The girls wrestled outstanding. They showed a lot of heart and wrestled very strong."
Americas scored 105 points despite not wrestling in two weight classes due to injuries. El Dorado was second at 87, while Socorro had 71.5.
Cynthia Flores (119 pounds), Sophia Casas (138), Valerie Rosales (165), Brittny Brown (185) and Devyn Morales (215) all won gold for the Trailblazers.
"We've worked hard for this, just to get district back," said Casas, the team captain. "The girls haven't won district in our school in a while, so we wanted to bring it back."
Meanwhile, El Dorado juniors Nelley Carrillo (102) and Betty Gay (148) were named outstanding girl wrestlers of the meet.
"It's crazy, like, wow," Carrillo said. "We've been working so hard, so, so hard and we've always placed, just not first. And at the district tournament, the most important tournament, we get first place. It's crazy. It feels good."
Carrillo, a California native, pinned Canutillo's Angelica Nunnery in 49 seconds for her first district title in Texas.
Gay's pin came against Socorro's Sylvia Samayoa, using the same move to win as Samayoa did in beating her in the championship last season, Gay said.
"It was easy," Gay said. "I liked it. Last year she beat me, but this year I wasn't going to let it happen."
Gay didn't accept all the credit for her success.
"I just want to thank my coaches, my family ... my cousin Ashley Gay, my little sister and my best friend, (Socorro 171-pound champion) Javier Medina," Gay said.
Other girl champions Saturday were Montwood's Anell Hernandez (95) and Socorro grapplers Brittney Gamboa (110) and Mayra Diaz (128).
In the 102-pound weight class, San Elizario sophomore Annette Ibarra finished third to become the young program's first girl to qualify for the regional meet.
Lenny Jurado may be reached at ljurado@elpasotimes.com; 546-6167.
Conder wins again
Shannyn J. Gillespie USOEC Freestyle
Saturday February 3, 2008
Calgary, Alberta, Canada Feb. 3, 2008 –– Whitney Conder
55kg wins her second title in as many days by capturing the Calgary Open
championship, held in the Kinesiology Complex of the University of Calgary
campus Sunday February 3, 2008. Two other U.S. Olympic Education Center
(USOEC) resident athletes, Beth Johnson 55kg and Schuyler Brown 63kg, also won
medals.
The finale at the fifty–five kilogram weight class was a rematch
of the Nordhagen International Classic, held only a day earlier, with nearly
the same result as Jr. World Champion (2007) Conder, a Northern Michigan
University (NMU) freshman, held off team mate Johnson in a 3 period
affair.
Brown bounced back after a disappointing semi–final loss and won
her bronze medal by a pin.
USOEC freestyle wrestlers Amber Miracle 59kg, Elizabeth DeAngelo
59kg, and Katie Crouch 72kg placed fourth and sixth respectively.
Johnson, DeAngelo, Brown, and Crouch are all Marquette Senior
High School seniors and participate in the USOEC program, as resident athletes,
on the campus of NMU.
The USOEC freestyle resident athlete team, a USA Wrestling
resident program, had more than 40 bouts over the weekend during the Nordhagen
International Classic and the Calgary Open competitions gaining much needed
experience heading into the upcoming Japan tour and the championship season.
USOEC Calgary Open Results
Beth Johnson 55kg Silver medalist Whitney
Conder 55kg Champion
Win– T. Chase (Sailisbury) Win– M. Dick
(Burnaby)
Win– A. Ross (UCWC) Win– B. Johnson
(USOEC)
Loss– W. Conder (USOEC)
Amber Miracle 59kg 4th
Elizabeth DeAngelo 6th
Win – R. Dickonson (Burnaby) Loss –
A.Doyle(NS)
Loss – H. Erdle (UCWC) Win by FT – A.
Torafson (Winnipeg)
Win – E. DeAngelo Loss – A. Miracle
(USOEC)
Loss – A.Doyle(NS) Loss – R.
Dickonson (Burnaby)
Schuyler Brown 63kg Bronze medalist Katie
Crouch 72kg 6th
Loss – D. Torgeson (Burnaby) Loss – M.
Connelly (N. Island)
Win by FT – L.Steffler (Brock) Win by FT
– E. Wiebi (UCWC)
