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2002 Senior Regional events to serve as qualifiers for World Team Trials

12/5/2002
Gary Abbott/USA Wrestling

USA Wrestling has approved a change in its World Team Trials qualifying system that will include select Senior Regional Championships as qualifiers for the 2002 World Team Trials in men’s freestyle, men’s Greco-Roman and women’s freestyle wrestling.

In the past, these Regional Championships were not among the qualifying events for the World Team Trials. However, during Olympic years, Regional Olympic Trials were developed and included as a part of the trials process.

Champions of the select 2002 Senior Regional Championships will qualify for the Challenge Tournament at the 2002 World Team Trials in the style that they win the Regional. Only champions advance to the World Team Trials; even if the champion also qualifies at another event, no other place finisher at the Regional event will advance. This is the same qualifying format used in the Regional Olympic Qualifiers in the past.

Not every USA Wrestling Junior Regional Championships has a Senior Regional Championships attached to it. This year, there will be three Senior Regional men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman events that will also be World Team Trials qualifiers.

The qualifying men’s Senior Regionals are: the Northern Plains Senior Regionals in LaCrosse, Wis., March 27-30; the Rocky Mountain Senior Regionals in Laramie, Wyo., March 28-30; the Northeast Senior Regionals in Brockport, N.Y., April 5-7.

“Adding the Northern Plains, Northeast and Rocky Mountain Regionals as World Team Trials qualifiers was a joint decision within USA Wrestling,” said Pete Isais, Director of National Events. “USA Wrestling feels that providing additional World Team Trials qualifying opportunities will be positive for the sport of wrestling.”

This year, USA Wrestling has identified two Senior Women’s Regionals as World Team Trials qualifiers: the Northern Plains Women’s Regionals in LaCrosse, Wis. on March 29-30, and the Northeast Women’s Regionals in Brockport, N.Y., April 5-7. In past years, these have been the largest and most competitive of the Women’s Regionals.

USA Wrestling will not host any other Senior Women’s Regionals this year. The goal is to build these two Women’s Regionals in size and prestige, then add more Women’s Regionals in the future.

“The expansion and growth of women’s wrestling is a major goal as we gear up for the 2004 Olympics,” said Isais. “We hope that concentrating on promoting two Women’s Regionals, the level of competition and the number of quality matches will increase, helping us to reach our goals for the Women’s program.”

Each style has its own qualifying requirements for the World Team Trials. Below are the qualifying standards for each style:

Freestyle Qualifying Criterion: 1. Top seven at 2002 U.S. Nationals; 2. Current National Team Member - top three; 3. Top-three finish in a FILA A Championship in the past two years, including Pan Ams, but not Sunkist; 4. Past World or Olympic Team member; 5. Medalist at Junior World Championships in the last two years; 6. Champion at 2002 Northern Plains, Rocky Mountain and Northeast Senior Regionals

Greco-Roman Qualifying Criterion: 1. Top seven at 2002 U.S. Nationals; 2. Current National Team Member - top three; 3. Top-three finish in a FILA A Championship in the past three years, including Pan Ams, but not Sunkist; 4. 2002 University National Champions; 5. Past World or Olympic Team member; 6. Medalist at Junior World Championships in the last two years; 7. Champion at 2002 Northern Plains, Rocky Mountain and Northeast Senior Regionals

Women’s Qualifying Criterion: 1. Top seven at 2002 U.S. Nationals; 2. Current National Team Member - top three; 3. Top-three finish in a FILA A Championship in the past three years, including Pan Ams, but not Sunkist; 4. 2002 University National Champions; 5. Past World Team member; 6. Champion at 2002 Northern Plains and Northeast Women’s Regionals

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To the Mat

Fort Worth Star Telegram 12/6/2001

Ashley Bock began competing this fall for the Arlington girls
wrestling team, and already, she has something she wants to show
off from one of her first matches. It's a bite mark.
"I got bit really bad, but then I beat this girl 17-5," Bock says
with pride. "I was like, 'That's what you get for biting me.' " The small
mark on her left arm is one of many notable things
about Bock, a high-energy, talkative athlete who has made a name
for herself in soccer. The senior Colts defender is balancing that,
school and work with a new sport she discovered this year. It
doesn't take much to realize that she's having a blast with it, too.
"I've tried volleyball and softball, and it wasn't as exciting,"
said Bock, the 2000 District 8-5A defensive soccer player of the
year. "It wasn't, like, contact. Last year, I quit basketball, and
I need something to do, so I was like, 'Golf? No. Cross Country?
No.' Then I was, like, 'Wrestling! All right!' "
When Bock told her friends that she was going to wrestle, they
didn't believe her. They didn't think she'd follow through. Then
she told her mother, who was initially hesitant before eventually
becoming excited."Oh my gosh," Ashley's mother, Kim Gibson, said. "I went to the
wrestling coach and said, 'Thanks for introducing my daughter to an
unfeminine sport.' "
Bock missed the first day of practice, but girls wrestling coach
Andrew Bauer said she's been there ever since. Entering the week,
Bock had a 1-3 record. Bauer said he's noticed Bock's athletic
talent, adding that it could only be a matter of time before she
experiences plenty of success.
"Ashley is quick and really strong," he said. "Once she gets a
few moves under her belt, she'll be real tough to beat."
Bock said wrestling has helped her avoid getting burned out with
soccer. Speaking of soccer, Bock - a Southwest Texas State signee -
also pointed out that she broke her nose during a recent club
tournament. Arlington girls soccer coach Kim Daniel said she
supports Bock's venture into wrestling, saying it will improve her
toughness and strength on the field.
"She's doing exactly what she can and she should," Daniel said.
"She's got the talent, she's got the ability and she's doing it."
Bock pointed out that even though she's played soccer for 14
years, she's in the best shape of her life, thanks to wrestling.
"I'm getting cut, for real!" she said. "I've been wrestling for
about a month now, and I'm getting way more cut than I used to be,
and I'm not even lifting. That's pretty sweet. I'm enjoying that."

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Pinning down a goal
A FAN'S GUIDE TO TEXANS ATHELTICS

12/6/2001
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

ARLINGTON - Sam Houston wrestler Glory Dalton won't be able to sneak up on anyone this season.

That happens when you advance to the state finals.

Dalton, a junior, was able to surprise some people in her first varsity season en route to a second-place finish in the 138-pound division. She knows that luxury is now gone.

"Now, she's been there and done that," Sam Houston wrestling coach Ryan Menard said. "Everybody's gunning to beat her. She's worked really hard and she's set some lofty goals."

Dalton is using her sophomore season as motivation. She went 19-6 with her final loss coming to Houston Sheppard of Amarillo Tascosa. Sheppard scored a point in the final 30 seconds to beat Dalton. Dalton had beaten Sheppard in a previous match last year.

The two have met once this season with Sheppard pinning Dalton at the Sam Houston Invitational last weekend. It's Dalton's only loss in five matches this year.

"My goal is to win state," said Dalton, who is ranked second behind Sheppard in the weight class by TexasWrestler.com. "I worked hard in the summer and I've been running. I've set my goals really high."

The running helps keep Dalton in shape, which is bad news for her opponents. The longer a match goes, the more likely it will end with a Dalton victory.

"It's really hard to score on me," Dalton said. "Basically, I last a long time. I don't get tired. I just wear people down and I have some basic knowledge of wrestling."

Dalton's ascension last season even surprised her coach.

"I was thinking about people like Brandy Killingsworth and Ember Brettman last season and then Glory makes the state finals," Menard said. "That just shows what hard work can do."

Dalton didn't wrestle before high school and found out about Sam Houston's wrestling program in the newspaper. She didn't play sports because she said she's not that coordinated. But wrestling has been a good fit for her and she increasingly likes the sport with the more experience she gains.

"It's one of the very few sports where you can go all out for six minutes," Dalton said. "You can't hold anything back. I don't feel any pain or anything when I'm out there. It's totally out of this world."

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First Woman at Hunter College Wrestling: Christina Luksa Is Ready to Wrestle

12/6/2001
Eddie Goldman/

NEW YORK, Dec. 5 -- She says she is not trying to make any kind of statement with her wrestling. "It's for me," she insists. She doesn't even follow women's wrestling, and says, "I don't know really anything about it." But freshman Christina Luksa became part of women's wrestling history Wednesday evening by becoming the first women wrestler ever to compete for the Hunter College wrestling team as they faced SUNY-Maritime in their home season opener at the Hunter Sportsplex.

Wrestling at 141 pounds, the 18-year old pre-med student took on junior Mike Leouis. Christina fell behind 5-1 at the end of the opening period and was down 7-2 in the second when she found an opening. She went for a reversal and got it, narrowing the score to 7-4.

As the partisan crowd and her teammates rocked the Sportsplex with their cheers for her, Christina lost her advantage and suddenly found herself on her back. Her opponent, now leading 13-4, seized this opportunity and flattened her out, getting the pin at 4:22, with just 38 seconds left in the second period.

The Sportsplex rocked again with cheers for Christina's gutsy effort, even though she had come up short. Before the match, Christina said her teammates "told me to go out there and do my best and kick his ass," as she laughed. "Even though I didn't win, I still felt like I kicked his ass," she said, laughing again. But she was also realistic about her loss. "I was gassed," she admitted, "and that means I need more cardio work, for sure."

Veteran Hunter Hawks wrestling coach Bob Gaudenzi, now in his 22nd year as head coach, was upbeat about Christina's performance. "She shot a nice single, she held onto the leg," he said. "She's getting better. Normally she's in a room full of other wrestlers and she gets right in there. You wouldn't know that it's a female or a male. It doesn't make a difference. She gets right on there and she goes. So technically she's like one of the guys at this point. She's very well-respected by her teammates and I think very much accepted by her teammates."

But the coach did say "she went out there a little nervous" and "needs some work on her defense." He said, "There was one or two situations in the match where the match could actually have been turned around, where if she just followed through on one or two moves, she was scoring the points. And she was scored upon, just because of a lack of experience with some defense. But that's something we've been working on as a team, and I think that's going to improve for her."

Perhaps the main reason for Christina's nervousness was the unusual media attention afforded her Hunter wrestling debut. Reporters from the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and television stations WB channel 11 and WABC channel 7 all swarmed over her, a rarity if not a first for media attention to college wrestling in New York.

Coach Gaudenzi said he "tried to keep it as low key as possible because I knew there was a lot of pressure on her," being her first college match and she being a freshman. But Christina recalls the coach asking her all week, "Are you ready? Are you ready?"

For Christina, "If I could just be a wrestler, that would be cool. Just like, the attention wouldn't be there. It would be easier." But she is not, and the attention, as she said, comes with the territory. She also is not asking to wrestle other women. "If there was a girl's team then I don't think I would join," she said. "I've never wrestled a female so I wouldn't know how I felt. I feel really comfortable with the guys."

In fact, Christina's reasons for wrestling sound the same as any other wrestler, male or female. "The physical contact, the need to keep up, always in shape, even when you're not wrestling. During the summer you have to keep up with it. It's a matter of strength you need. It's an individual sport, so it's all on you," she explained.

Christina only started wrestling last season as a senior at Brooklyn's Franklin D. Roosevelt High School. She went 4-7, all against boys. Now she feels this match is helping her confidence. "He got me down and I grabbed ahold of his leg and kind of locked it there and he couldn't get it free. I kind of felt like I was feeling like a wrestler basically."

Nonetheless, there are still some problems facing her wrestling for Hunter. After the dual meet with SUNY-Maritime, Hunter had another meet this evening with Yeshiva, an Orthodox Jewish school. Their team would not wrestle a woman for religious reasons, so Christina, even though she doesn't regularly start at 141, had no choice but to sit that one out. It didn't matter a lot, since Hunter clobbered Yeshiva 53-3, after defeating SUNY-Maritime, a state school, 41-18, but it does show that women's college wrestling is not universally accepted. Hunter is also the only school in the CUNY system (City University of New York) to have a wrestling team.

At present, according to USA Wrestling, there are five women's varsity wrestling teams: University of Minnesota-Morris, Missouri Valley College, Cumberland College in Kentucky, Menlo College in California, and Neosho CC in Kansas. Several others have women's wrestling clubs, and at least a dozen have women wrestling on their otherwise men's varsity squads, not including Hunter, a Div. III school.

Women's wrestling will also make its Olympic debut at the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece, with four weight classes of freestyle wrestling.

Despite the growth of women's wrestling, and its international acceptance, there are apparently some airheads that just haven't gotten it yet. The report about Christina's match on WB 11 ended with the sports commentator saying he thought women's wrestling was "best two out of three," and the host mumbling something about wrestling in the back seat of a car.

Yuk, yuk. Perhaps if these gentlemen would pay a little more attention to the world's oldest sport and less to trying to be junior high school-level comedians, we would all be better served. But that is why we are here, so stick with this site for the real deal from the world of real wrestling.

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Hunter Co-Ed City's
First Female Wrestler

By WAYNE COFFEY 12/6/2001
Daily News Sports Writer

hree stories below Lexington Ave., with shaky nerves beforehand and joyful tears afterward, Christina Luksa made her college debut, and a piece of history, last night.

She liked the debut part best. It came on a purple mat, before two dozen fans, and if getting pinned wasn't the result she wanted, well, it didn't alter her view of the larger picture.

"It's worth it," Luksa said, brushing away a tear.

Luksa, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is an 18-year-old freshman at Hunter College, and the first female wrestler in school history. She is believed to be the only female college wrestler in the city, but this is no novelty act.

Ask her teammates, or her coach, Bob Gaudenzi.

"Right off the bat with Christina you knew she was serious," Gaudenzi said. "She'll wrestle just about any guy in the room."

Or as teammate Ed Parra, a 197-pound freshman, told her, "On the mat, you're not a male or a female. You're a wrestler."

Luksa, 5-6 and 141 pounds, could hardly be picked out as Hunter came out against SUNY Maritime, running a few laps in gray sweats. Only when her hood and sweats came off did her gender become apparent.

Luksa was going to debut against Yeshiva in another dual match yesterday, before Yeshiva officials said that orthodox dictates forbade any of their athletes to wrestle a woman.

So Gaudenzi switched her to the Maritime match. Her opponent, Mike Leouis, a sophomore from Chatham, N.J., didn't know he was wrestling a woman until 30 minutes before.

What was he thinking?

"Pin her like any other guy," he said.

The youngest of five children of Ivan and Janina Luksa, Christina comes from a fearless sisterhood. Basia, 32, her oldest sister, sky dives. Roz, 28, is a transit police officer. Cathy, 26, is a former Hunter softball star studying physical therapy.

Christina grew up playing softball and basketball, but found herself thirsting for physical contact, and some self-defense skills. "My brother (James) used to beat up on me. He kind of trained me for this," Luksa said.

She competed in tae kwon do and judo starting at 14, and then decided she wanted to try wrestling. She approached the AD at Franklin D. Roosevelt HS in Brooklyn. She was rebuffed. Her senior year, more adamant now, she tried again.

Adele Vosel, the school principal, called Janina Luksa. "She told my mother guys would be touching me and she shouldn't let me do it," Christina said. Janina agreed, and so did her father, a truck driver.

Christina had the predictable teenage reaction.

"I went nuts," she said. She eventually wore everyone down, made coach Paul Klyap's team, and finished the season 4-7.

Gaudenzi has been impressed by Luksa's upper-body strength, and even more by her will. Her techniques need work. Her tenacity needs nothing.

"If I had to guess, she'd probably be the last one to quit the team," the coach said.

Luksa was cheered heartily by her teammates last night. Leouis was the aggressor from the start, shot for her legs, took her down. She fought hard, locked up one of his legs, but couldn't hold him off. With 38 seconds left in the second period, the ref slapped the mat.

Luksa's debut was done. Hunter won the match, 41-18.

"I've never wrestled a woman before. I didn't know what to expect," said Leouis. That makes them even; Luksa has never wrestled a woman either. Leouis was impressed. "She competes with guys."

Luksa said she was "gassed" at the end, and needs work on her conditioning. She will stay at it, not to make a statement, but just to do something she loves.

"It's for me," Luksa said.