Gators pin down two state titles

PASCO TIMES 2/7/02

Land O'Lakes' Dana Kearney and Jessica Worthington brought home gold
medals from the state tournament.

LAND O'LAKES - It's official: Land O'Lakes has a wrestling dynasty on
its hands.

Juniors Dana Kearney and Jessica Worthington proved that at Saturday's
Women's State Wrestling Tourney at Kissimmee Gateway, bringing back two
state championships to Pasco County.

Kearney won the first state girls wrestling title in Tampa Bay and
Pasco County history at last season's tourney in Oviedo, and Worthington
earned the first silver medal. Now Kearney is the first two-time girls state
champion, and Worthington earned her first state title. Together, the
two of them led Land O'Lakes to a fifth-place finish, scoring 56 points to
state champion Gateway's 165.5 points. Three Hudson wrestlers also medaled to
lead the Cobras to 12th place.

"You hate to say it, but we almost kind of expected it," Gators coach
Brett Murray said. "Because they wrestled so well last year, we expected good
things out of them, but to finish fifth as a team, that blew me away.

"If we had any other girls to go up there, we could have made a real
big noise up there. I'm real proud of them and what they accomplished."

Kearney won four consecutive matches to win her second consecutive gold
medal, defeating Gainesville's Kayte Susse 8-4 in the 124-pound finals.
It was the first points a foe scored against Kearney in back-to-back state
tourney appearances.

Kearney won despite having just one week of practice. She was nursing
torn meniscus and anterior-cruciate ligaments in her left knee, an injury
suffered at the Jerry Mita Tournament at Pinellas Park.

"It was a lot tougher than I expected and I really didn't think I'd
come out on top," Kearney said. "I was hoping I would, but I didn't think I
could come up against someone with my same ability."

But she did in the finals, so what was the difference? "I had more
experience," Kearney said.

Last season, Worthington left Oviedo disappointed with the silver medal
after falling 8-6 to defending state and AAU national girls champion
Kristen Ianuzzi of Winter Springs.

But she came back strong this season, recording four consecutive pins
to earn her first state title. In the 132-pound final, Worthington pinned
Lyman's Rachel Martinez in 57 seconds. But Worthington said her
toughest match was in the semifinals, when she was down 7-2 to Edgewater's
Jennifer Guillen before taking the lead in the third period and pinning her in
5:40.

"I think I was in a lot better shape and I knew more, which helped a
lot," Worthington said.

Both Worthington and Kearney plan to compete in the United States Girls
Wrestling Association Nationals beginning March 22 at Lake Orion, Mich.

Hudson's Tania Trenta Costa finished fourth at 120 after losing by pin
to Lemon Bay's Tiffany Mason in 3:47 in the consolation bracket.

Hudson scored two wins in the final round of consolations. Rachel Boyko
took fifth at 107 by pinning Cypress Creek's Ashleigh Gallant in 2:58. Kelly
Burger finished fifth at 112, defeating Ocala Forest's Brittney Wilder
4-3.

Kearney is now practicing with the Land O'Lakes softball team and is
competing for a catcher and outfielder positions.

She said she doesn't want to risk further injury to her knee wrestling
with the boys.

But she will be back next season to try for a third consecutive state
title, and she hopes the county can send a unified team to compete for the
state title.

"I'm just happy that no surgery was needed and that the knee was kind
of rested," she said. "But if I keep wrestling this year, it could get
torn all the way and then I'll need surgery."

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Female wrestler 'part of the team'
A-P-W's Jessica Pierce says she is not trying to blaze a trail, she just likes the sport.

Saturday, February 1, 2002

By Nolan Weidner

Why wrestling?

It's a question that Jessica Pierce can never escape. She gets it from
strangers, opponents, and her classmates at Altmar-Parish-Williamstown
Central School.

Why does a girl want to immerse herself in such a male-dominated sport?

Pierce, who wrestles varsity at 125 pounds for the Rebels, doesn't have
a fancy answer.

"I like wrestling," the A-P-W freshman said with a shy smile while
sitting in a school hallway. She's out of breath, her cheeks still red from
running 20 laps around the school with the other A-P-W wrestlers, all boys.

She doesn't win often. In fact, she spends a portion of many matches
trying to avoid a technical fall, where the match is stopped after an opponent
is 15 points ahead, or the dreaded sound of the referee's hand slapping
the mat, signaling a pin for her opponent.

Pierce is the only girl wrestling varsity in the Onondaga League on a
regular basis. Her current record is 5-16, but three of her victories
are from forfeits when the opposing team didn't have a wrestler at her
weight.

While the Parish resident isn't a threat to embarrass most of the boys
she faces, she has earned the respect of many just for getting out there
and taking her lumps.

"You don't want to lose to a girl," said Cato-Meridian senior Tim
Bratt, who s faced Pierce three times, winning all of their matches by technical
fall.

Bratt admits he was nervous the first time they met, at a Cato-Meridian
Christmas tournament. But he doesn't scoff at her effort.

"For a girl, she's really good. On Saturday, she almost took me right
down," he said of their most recent meeting last week at the Hannibal dual
meet tournament. "I've never pinned her."

Tully coach Nick Zupan said that upper-body strength, which boys
possess more of, is probably the only thing keeping Pierce down.

"Technically, she's decent," Zupan said. "She's very talented."

A-P-W coach Bruce Dennison said Pierce has been a welcome addition to
his team, although having a girl on the mats has been a new experience for
him. The program, which Dennison has resuscitated in the past three years,
still struggles to fill out every weight class, usually forfeiting at 112 and
177 pounds.

"I started out thinking, 'You've got to be the same as the rest,'¤"
Dennison said. "And, for the most part, she has."

Assistant coach Buckie Wells said Pierce has earned her spot on the
varsity.

"She's earned a lot of respect," he said. "She fights harder than most
guys. She won't give up. That's what keeps her in matches."

Pierce isn't a wrestling neophyte.

She is a granddaughter of Larry Wormald of North Syracuse, a longtime
coach with the Mohawk Valley Wrestling Club who six years ago established a
girls team within the 20-year-old club.

Pierce and several of her sisters have wrestled with the Mohawk club
since the girls team was started, traveling around the country to compete
against other girls teams.

"A lot of girls who wrestle would prefer to do it against girls,"
Wormald said. But one problem is that the club only operates in the spring and
summer. And girls who become decent wrestlers find little opportunity
to improve much unless they compete on a school team against boys.

"It's becoming more accepted," Wormald said of girls wrestling boys.
"But there are still people who are staunchly against it."

Zupan doesn't place himself in that negative camp, but the Tully coach
is honest in assessing the situation a teen-age boy faces when his
opponent across the mat is female.

"It's awkward, without question," he said.

When Tully wrestled A-P-W in early January, Zupan had to sort of
counsel junior 125-pounder Brandon Avery. "He didn't really want to wrestle
her," Zupan said of Avery's 24-10 decision. "I could tell he was tentative."

One problem, according to Zupan, is that many boys are raised in homes
where fighting with a girl is considered morally wrong. Add to that an
element of awkwardness that might exist when opposite sexes engage in a
close-contact sport like wrestling, and it's understandable that a boy might
hesitate.

"Personally, would I ever let my daughter do it? No," Zupan said.

Jessica's mother, Patricia Pierce, not only supports her daughter's
wrestling, but she wishes she could've gotten involved years ago.

"I'm very proud of them. I think more girls should try it," she said of
her five daughters, who all did or still do wrestle with the Mohawk Valley
club. Jessica's younger sister, Jenna, is an A-P-W seventh-grader and a
member of the school's modified team. Patricia Pierce even tried some freestyle
wrestling herself some years ago, but said she gave it up because of
the danger of being injured.

Jessica Pierce said she isn't trying to be a pioneer. While admitting
that "it was kind of scary" last year when she first wrestled boys as a
member of the A-P-W modified team, she no longer thinks much about it.

"When I go out on the mat, I just think of them as a wrestler. Just
like me," she said.

Teammate Ryan Maichak, a 135-pound junior, had never wrestled a girl
before Jessica joined the team. He sometimes is paired with her in practice.

"For me, it's easy enough to get past," he said.

Fellow junior Steve Dennison, the coach's son, said nobody on the team
is making fun of Jessica.

"It's different. But she's tough," he said. "It seems like she's just
another guy .¤.¤. she's just part of the team."

Jessica, who is aware that women's freestyle wrestling will be a medal
sport starting with the 2004 Olympics, said she often senses that her
opponent doesn't take her seriously. She tries to change that.

"This year, most of the guys think it's going to be an easy match," she
said. "Then they go out there and it's a lot harder than they thought."

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