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Kernahan Park's dynamite
Wrestler Krystal Hutton earns second title at Lakeport meet

Alison Rogers, The Standard
stcatharines 12/21/02

With the high school wrestling season barely under way, Kernahan Park's Krystal Hutton has already won two tournaments.

Hutton notched her second title in the 48-kilogram (under 110 pounds) novice girls division Thursday at the Lakeport Novice and Girls Wrestling Tournament.

Kernahan co-coach Aram Tokadjian said Hutton is one of four girls on the 12-member squad.

It's the second year for the Kernahan team, started last year under the direction of Luc Collison, who is now coaching at Laura Secord.

Tokadjian and Kathryn Nuyten are now coaching the KP wrestlers, aiming to send more than the two that went to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations championships last year.

"(Krystal's) an all-around athlete," said Tokadjian. "We call her 'a little package of dynamite.'

"She's pretty feisty and she's really aggressive," he added.

Hutton, the school's junior female athlete of the year in 2001-02, also plays volleyball for Kernahan and travels to St. Catharines Collegiate for cheerleading practices with the Saints' squad.

Tokadjian said the Kernahan wrestling team was dormant for about 10 years before its revival last year. Chad Smith and Sara Henderson, both Grade 10 students this year, made it to the OFSAA tournament last year.

Henderson picked up where she left off last spring, placing second in the heavyweight girls division at Lakeport.

Bill Smith, coach of the Lakeport Lakers and convener of Thursday's tournament, which featured 264 wrestlers, gave high marks to the KP team.

"They run a nice program over there," said Smith. "They've got a lot of kids involved, they're having fun and they're winning at the same time."

The high school wrestling season lasts for four months, with Christmas Break arriving just as the teams are hitting stride.

"Then we're back two weeks and then we break for exams," Smith added.

Beamsville will host an all-star wrestling tournament Thursday, matching the top wrestlers in each division against each other.

Following are results for the Lakeport Novice and Girls Wrestling Tournament.

NOVICE GIRLS

39 kilogram: 1. Stephanie Veldman, Cayuga; 2. Madeline Quizon, N.S.S.; 3. Melissa Dichs, College Heights.

45 kilograms: 1. Laura Kipp, Beamsville; 2. Jill Kennedy, Stamford; 3. Maya Fainshtein, Newtonbrook.

48 kilograms: 1. Krystal Hutton, Kernahan Park; 2. Dina Ciccarelli, St. Michael; 3. Lora Fenn, White Oaks.

51 kilograms: 1. Emily Filmore, Beamsville; 2. Sara Nash, Laura Secord; 3. Lin Stafford, St. David.

55 kilograms: 1. Dana Culver, Dunnville; 2. Ashley Fraser-Brown, Dunnville; 3. Alicia Wynter, Resurrection.

58 kilograms: 1. Michelle Fezarri, Cayuga; 2. Kim Belaney, Cayuga; 3. Marg Vu, St. David.

61 kilograms: 1. Kristen Dickie, Cayuga; 2. Nicole Culver, Dunnville; 3. Chelsea Livingston.

66 kilograms: 1. Nancy Rodman, St. David; 2. Amy Granton, Thorold; 3. Crystan Anders, College Heights.

73 kilograms: 1. Stacey O'Brien, College Heights; 2. Jennifer Smith, College Heights; 3. Liz McDonald, Laura Secord.

OPEN GIRLS

46 kilograms: 1. Heather Duffie, Dunnville; 2. Lisa Foster, Hagersville; 3. Mandi Thompson, College Heights.

53 kilograms: 1. Charmaine Ward, Resurrection; 2. Krystal Hughes, Hagersville; 3. Vanessa Brazeau, St. Michael.

60 kilograms: 1. Sam Easton, Stamford; 2. Jenn Parrott, Resurrection; 3. Shannon Bell, Beamsville.

68 kilograms: 1. Stephanie Brown, St. Michael; 2. Alicia Hall, St. David; 3. Jessica Smith, College Height.

76 kilograms: 1. Caitlin Hughes, Monarch Park; 2. Nordonia Smith, Thorold; 3. Heather Murray, St. Michael.

83 kilograms: 1. Heather Jorna, Hagersville; 2. Kayla-Marie Anderson, Cayuga.

Heavyweight: 1. Tiffany Steadman, Stamford; 2. Sara Henderson, Kernahan Park; 3. Elisa Schapense, College Heights.

TEAM TOTALS

Novice girls: 1. Cayuga; 2. College Heights; 3. Dunnville; 4. Beamsville; 5. St. David's.

Open girls: 1. Hagersville; 2. Stamford; 3. St. Michael; 4. Resurrection; 5. College Heights.

Combined girls: 1. Cayuga 44; 2. College Heights 41; 3. Dunnville 36; 4. St. Michael 32; 5. Beamsville 26.

Combined team: 1. St. David's 111; 2. St. Michael 94; 3. Cayuga 71; 4. Dunnville 69; 5. College Heights; 6. Resurrection; 7. Robert Land; 8. Thorold; 9. Hagersville; 10. Beamsville.

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HAUGEN: Leave the girl alone

By: Mark Haugen December 19, 2002

Finally, a subject has arisen of which I am an expert: wrestling girls.
What are my qualifications to claim "expert" status here? Well, I have two daughters, and I actually wrestle with them quite often on the living room floor, if you consider it wrestling for them to jump on my back and squeeze around my neck until I can't breathe.
Also, I wrestled competitively, meaning I was on a team, until eighth grade when I discovered one thing I didn't like about wrestling against boys - pain.

And I still actually wrestle a woman close to my age - my wife. On Saturday nights, when the kids are at grandmas, we buy a five-gallon pail full of Jell-O cubes from Hy-Vee and then dump it on our kitchen floor and wrestle around in it. (Actually, that last part was a joke, an attempt at humor I feel I must now point out on those occasions I use it, because there were people who actually believed I rode the senior citizen bus to buy prescription drugs in Canada.)
So, given my background, I have strong feelings about this girl who is wrestling for Lincoln High School (the school that also gave us the first openly gay couple to attend prom together in the state back in the late 1970s). Those Patriots are ahead of their time in South Dakota - trend setters.
I am all for her wrestling on the team. I think it's great.
But as it is with most things for kids, there's not much of a problem until the adults get involved. I actually heard one parent testify at the Sioux Falls School Board meeting that boys wrestling her might have other things on their mind - meaning they might enjoy it too much.
What a bunch of bologna that is. The ONLY thing on any boy's mind who wrestles her is: "God, please don't let me lose!"
Let's face it, the girl seems very nice, very composed considering the attention she's getting, but she's an eighth-grader, with an eighth-grader's body. It's not like these boys are going up against Pamela Lee Anderson and going "Woohoo, I'm gonna get me a feely!"
If she maintains the same body structure as she has now, she might continue wrestling through college. But few girls do. I've noticed something, and it's that girls grow in different areas than boys do (I should've been a doctor). As she matures physically, she might even feel it inappropriate to be getting grabbed like all wrestlers get grabbed, but then it's her choice. And if the boys don't want to wrestle in the same manner against her as they would a boy, then they might lose. And boys don't like to lose, period. Things will work themselves out, if the adults keep their out-of-joint noses out of it.
Some parents seem to worry about the inappropriateness of it - like their son's hand might actually come into contact with her butt and that it's somehow much more appropriate for their boy's hand to come into contact with another boy's butt. Give me a break. They're wrestling! They're competing! They are scrapping, sweating, clawing, trying to get their opponent on the back. They aren't thinking about body parts.
Her first tournament, she won one, she lost one (and that poor sap's name was on the front page of the paper, etched in his psyche for life) and another kid she was supposed to wrestle forfeited due to illness.
That would have been me, the sick one. And it would have been a legitimate sickness. I would have worried myself to bleeding ulcer status for two days before the match if I knew I even had a remote chance of wrestling her. There's no way I would have been in school that day. But that was my mentality in junior high. I'd get nervous, making myself sick to my stomach, literally praying for rain, days before a track meet - and that was a sport I was good at!
Thankfully, 20-plus years later, I've gained some confidence in myself (some would maintain too much so) and I have no problem losing to a girl. It happens in almost every road race I run and it doesn't bother me a bit. Yet, I will still run into some neanderthal friend who will point out days later after seeing the race results: "I see you lost to a woman."
Never mind that I won my age group or finished in the top five or ran a personal best - you lose to a woman and that's all some people remember. I do point out to them that my losses are to women like Heidi Reed or Kristi Reiger, former collegiate All-Americans - 10 to 15 years younger than I am! Heck, when I'm in a race and Heidi, a former Cantonite, is just over my shoulder (or just in front of me), I know I'm running a good race. Half the time she beats me, the other half I beat her. As long as I'm close to her, I know I'm running a good pace for a 38-year-old guy.
Besides, I think it's good for a man or boy to lose to a female. It builds character, it reinforces the equality of the sexes, and most importantly: It prepares him for marriage.
So, finally, some Chicken Soup for the Soul, from ol' Haugs to the little Patriot: Wrestle on, young lass. Enjoy yourself. Do what you like to do and do it as well as you can. Don't worry about the morons - they're around when you're 13 - they'll be around when you're 38. Get used to it. You can't be held responsible for other people's lack of intelligence. Words to live by. They work for me anyway.

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Tremendous grit

By Larry Dawalt 12/20/02
Gazette Correspondent

Fighting a girl goes against the upbringing of most southern boys. But Shasta Bryant is changing that tradition at East Lincoln High School.
Bryant, 17, served as manager of the wrestling team during her sophomore year and was set to serve in the same capacity this season. But then she convinced first-year Mustang coach Cain Beard that she should actually be on the team and that’s what she’s been doing, and doing well.

“She’s got tremendous grit and drive,” Beard said of the 112-pounder. “It’s just a matter of her getting some experience.”

Bryant has played basketball and run cross-country and track for the Mustangs. But she says wrestling is a whole new game.

“I think I’m a pretty good athlete, but wrestling is harder than anything I’ve ever done,” Bryant said. “It takes a lot of dedication and a lot of hard work, but I really like it. A little more experience and a little more mat time and I’ll be ready to go.”

Bryant gets her experience every afternoon in practice, experience Beard says is just like the other team members.

“It hasn’t been that different at all and it shouldn’t be,” Beard said. “I expect the same things from her as I do any other wrestler on the team.”

Bryant says she’s been made to feel like just another member of the team.

“Honestly, I don’t feel any different,” she said. “If somebody came in to practice and saw us, they might say something like he’s on top of her, but it’s not that way at all. I don’t cut them any slack and they don’t cut me any slack. It’s about being athletes, not anything else.”

Bryant says reactions to her new sport have varied, but most have been positive.

“Most people are excited,” Bryant said. “They want to come see my first varsity match.”

Bryant may be on the mat in varsity competition soon, as she continues to improve and as Beard tweaks his line-up to prepare for Big South 3A Conference competition. Regardless of when she cracks the lineup, Beard thinks she is setting a trend that will continue in the years to come.

“Wrestling is a great opportunity for all high school athletes,” Beard said. “Women’s wrestling will be an Olympic sport in 2004. It’s growing by leaps and bounds.”

The sport is also growing at the university level, something Bryant may take advantage of next year.

“If I got the opportunity, I’d probably pursue wrestling in college,” Bryant said. “It’s a great sport.”

But first, she has to prove herself at the high school level.

“Nobody takes it easy on me,” Bryant said. “I’ve been hit in the mouth, in the eye and about everywhere else. I get no special privileges. But I can handle it.”