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Push begins for girls wrestling in Oklahoma
Glen Hibdon, Tulsa World 1/2103
SLOWLY BUT surely, girls wrestling is coming to Oklahoma. Especially if Robert Stokes has his way.
Stokes is the director of the first United States Girls Wrestling Association Oklahoma State Tournament, slated for March 16 at East Central High School. Up to 50 competitors from . eight states are expected, but perhaps . only 10 will be from Oklahoma.
"I'm hoping to get enough girls to host two or three tournaments a year in Oklahoma," said Stokes, whose daughter Cheyenne will try out for the East Central boys team as a freshman next year. "I want to get the girls involved where they don't have to compete against boys. Texas has 130 girls High school programs and I want us to get to that level in Oklahoma."
Kent Bailow, president of the USGW A, is attempting to form girls state tournaments throughout the U.S.
He approached Stokes about putting one together here. After heading up the all-girl American Classic in November, Stokes was eager to organize the first official state meet It will serve as a fund-raiser for East Central's wrestling program.
"My daughter and Joey Miller from Woodward are the only girls from Oklahoma who are really competitive,"
said Stokes. "Joey's father, Jerry, coaches and promotes girls wrestling and he has his own Web site. He gets
600 hits a day. -"My ultimate goal is to have girls high school teams in Oklahoma, and it won't happen unless someone gets
it started and pushes the issue. This would be a good thing for Title IX and I intend to promote it and create
enough interest When enough kids are doing it we can approach (the OSSAA) about creating programs. Nationally, girls wrestling has grown 10 to 15 percent in the last four years and Kent puts on a national tournament It's grown 10 percent every year and last year there were 465 girls."
Stokes said his Oklahoma State Tournament would have age divisions from kindergarten through college. Although he's hoping for the best, he doesn't expect any college aged women will enter. However, there is good news. Six colleges have programs now and Stokes is eager to boost interest among young girls locally.
"Traditionally, wrestling has been known as a man's sport, but in my opinion, girls are able to compete if they like to do it," he said. "They should be given every opportunity.Right now, young girls are competing against young boys until they reach
puberty and boys become too strong for them. There just aren't enough girls wrestling and we want to create
enough interest where girls don't have to compete against boys."
Stokes' daughter still drills against boys and must travel to find female opponents. He said the National Federation allows girls without local high school programs to compete unattached in other states. Cheyenne will go to Texas, California, Florida and
Michigan to find suitable foes."I know some parents see wrestling like boxing, a physical one-on-one contact sport," Stokes said. "And I know some don't want their girls wrestling with boys. I do think there are benefits for the girls, like learning disci-
pline and self-confidence. I think wrestling builds character and they can carry that on into their work life. It teaches girls to work hard and achieve their goals."Like any dad, I want to do what I can for my kids. I really didn't have any plans for this eight years ago. My child decided she wanted to wrestle and I wanted to give her every opportunity to do her best. I know USA Wrestling is pushing girls wrestling and Archie Randall, our state director, wants to put a girls team together to
represent our state at the junior and cadet levels in Fargo. As far as promoting tournaments,' that's down the
road for me. Like I said, my ultimate goal is to see girls wrestling become a high school sport in Oklahoma. And
I'm pushing for it."
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Ellison sweeps Shoemaker, Heights in wrestling
BY TERRY BRITT
Herald Staff Writer 1/24/03
The storm clouds are gathering.
Thursday night at Ellison gym provided a little advance of what should be an adrenaline-charged, highly competitive District 26 meet on the same mat next Thurday. Ellison, Shoemaker and Harker Heights battled in a tri-meet with the Ellison wrestlers sweeping and Shoemaker downing Harker Heights in the middle match.
Although Ellison will take an undefeated team mark of 8-0 into the district meet, Eagle wrestling coach Dean Schaub knows his wrestlers have a tough task ahead as they try to advance to regionals.
"Our wrestlers handle the pressure pretty good, probably better than I do," said Schaub following his team's 51-28 win over Harker Heights in the tri-meet's finale.
However, some of the best matches of the night took place between the Knights and Eagles, most notably: Aaron Laester's 7-6 win for Heights over Ellison's Fernando Paularena in the 119-pound division; Terry Howell's 8-6 win for Heights over Ellison's Octavia Lowe in the 160-pound division; John Townsend of Ellison scoring a 6-3 win over John Rogers of Heights in the 189-pound division; and Devin Hurd of Heights taking a hard-fought 11-7 win over Tsomwe Tsolumba of Ellison in the 215-pound division.
In all four matches, the technique and sheer determination of the wrestlers could not be missed.
"I felt we did much better this time against Ellison, and positioned ourselves better for the district tournament. We gained some confidence out of this match," said Harker Heights wrestling coach Mike Woodward.
Heights' top gun, Chris Fajkus, scored an 18-0 win in the boys opener against a solid opponent in Ellison's Alfonzo Youngblood.
Troy Langston, Brandon Cummings, William McNeil, John Modde and Joseph Sheffield all scored pinfall victories for Ellison, while Kurtis Pope notched a pinfall win for Heights.
On the girls side, Heights scored a pair of good victories as Desiree Trevino won by pinfall over Andrea Parker of Ellison in a 138-pound division exhibition and the Knights' Marrissa Jones took a 6-0 decision over Danielle Gamble in the 215-pound division. Ellison's Kenyetta Baker won by pinfall over Jessica Godbold of Heights in an exhibition in the 102-pound division.
Earlier in the evening, another coach who had a lot to smile about was Shoemaker's Ernie Ferguson, who saw his Grey Wolves more than hold their own in the middleweight classes against Ellison, then continue the strong performance in a 43-30 win over Harker Heights.
"Our biggest problem in matches is not having enough wrestlers to fill in some of the spots, and the forfeits make our team scores look worse than they actually are sometimes," said Ferguson. "I saw what I was hoping to see, and that was our kids going out there to wrestle and wrestling well."
Schaub agreed that Shoemaker is well on its way in the mat wars.
"Shoemaker is probably, out of our district, the best team we've faced. They are so stacked in the middleweight divisions," said Schaub.
For the Wolves, Stephen Allen took a 9-2 win over Cummings in the 130-pound division, Daniel Loment took an 8-2 victory over Modde in the 171-pound class and Andrew Bishop scored a 7-2 win over Townsend in the 189-pound class.
John Ming gave perhaps the strongest effort of all for Shoemaker in a 14-5 victory over Curtis Lyles of Ellison in the 145-pound class. In the 275-pound battle, Sheffield took the point by forfeit for Ellison when Shoemaker opponent Jeremy Pati came in overweight, but the two decided to go in an exhibition match and it was Pati scoring the upset pinfall, the first time he has bested Sheffield.
Ellison swept the girls matches with Parker, Mary Chabot, Lakeisha Wilson and Gamble all scoring pinfall victories. Emmanuel Floyd and McNeil took wins by decision in the boys matches for Ellison.
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Caprock girls to compete in duals
By John Kaltefleiter/jkaltefleiter@amarillonet.com 1/24/03
T.J. Johnson doesn't know what to make of it.
The Caprock wrestling coach has never seen anything like what has transpired in the Caprock girls wrestling program this season.
Without a standout performer and with just one senior, the Lady Longhorns have exceeded their coach's expectations, not to mention their own.
On Thursday, Johnson and company headed to Houston for the Texas State Duals, a big-time tournament that starts Saturday and a tournament that Caprock emerged victorious in last year in Grapevine.
They're hoping they can do it again this weekend.
"We're going to have to go down there mentally and physically ready," said 95-pound sophomore grappler Crystal Valdez, who has seen her squad win all four wrestling tourneys it has competed in this year.
"We're going to have work our hardest and if we do that, we'll take them."
"Them" is the multitude of girls' wrestling teams from around the state looking to upset the top-ranked Lady Longhorns.
Caprock's girls stumbled out of the gate when the season started, losing to former state champion and chief rival Palo Duro 26-20 in their initial dual.
But since that defeat, the Lady Longhorns (6-1, 5-0 in district) have reeled off five straight victories, including a 32-26 win over the Lady Dons and a slim win over defending state champion Tascosa to capture the district championship.
And they did so with a lineup filled with juniors and sophomores with minimal experience. Some of those have included juniors Nina Rodriguez (148 pounds) and Hope Jones (119), and sophomores such as Valdez and Amanda Holland (128 pounds), Johnson said.
"We don't have any outstanding wrestlers as it is," said Johnson, whose lone senior is Amanda Flores (138 pounds) and who hopes Caprock can win its first state title since 2000 this February at the state tournament.
"They seem to pull together. They depend on one another. As a coach, I've never been associated with a team like this. Maybe one of our big guns will lose one and then someone we don't expect to will step up and lead.
"We don't know who or when they're going to step up, but somehow they manage to do it."
Valdez agreed.
"We have a full team. We have a great team and a lot of potential and we haven't come up short in a tournament yet," she said.
"PD is our No. 1 competitor, and when it comes down to matches like that where it's real important, we are just more determined to beat our opponent."
The Lady Longhorns will find out the measure of their determination this weekend
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Reunion on the mat
New Oxford routs South Western in teams' third meeting.
By RYAN BEVITZ 1/24/03
Evening Sun Sports Writer
Whoever said the third time was a charm never took up the sport of wrestling.
On Thursday, New Oxford High and South Western again found themselves at the same wrestling competition, the third time during the season for the two YAIAA Division I foes.
Only this time, South Western found that familiarity does not breed content as the Mustangs fell to the host Colonials, 59-4.
The dual meet marked the third time some of the wrestlers competed against each other during the 2002-03 season.
"It's hard because they know your strategy. They know what you do well and what you don't do well," New Oxford's Barrett Clabaugh said. "They know where your weak points and strong points are.
"But we also know where their strong points are and their weaknesses."
Clabaugh dealt South Western's Corey Wonder a 3-0 loss at 152 pounds to take a 2-1 lead on the season series.
Wonder won the first meeting 2-0 at the Delone Catholic Christmas Tournament. Cla-baugh (21-4) then posted a 13-1 major decision over the South Western sophomore at last weekend's Top Gun Tournament.
"It definitely motivated me a lot because I wanted to go out and take him down and beat him, beat him bad," Clabaugh said.
Clabaugh wasn't alone. South Western's Ryan Most and New Oxford's Brad Campbell locked up for the fourth time this season. Unlike the previous trio of meetings, Campbell came out the victor this time.
"It's whoever catches someone and gets a four- or five-point move that typically wins the match," South Western coach Dave Cox said. "Tonight, Campbell was the one who made the takedown and 'Mosty' couldn't make up the difference for the penalty point that made the difference in the match."
It wasn't just Most's loss which caught Cox by surprise. While the Mustangs were a decisive underdog going into the meet, Cox didn't expect to lose by as many points as he did. Lance Robison's major decision at 171 was the only bout South Western won.
"I would like to say it was just an off night, but who knows?," Cox said. "When you're this young, I don't know if there's a little intimidation factor or whatever, but we did not go out and wrestle like we have."
New Oxford's Dave Conaway, in contrast, was more than delighted with the way his team performed. The Colonials (9-5, 5-2) won by their largest margin of the season.
"You never know when you have crosstown rivals. You never know what's going to happen," New Oxford coach Dave Conaway said. "We were just glad that we could come out and compete and win they way we did."
Among the 13 victories posted by New Oxford matmen, five came from the seniors Clabaugh, Mike Ferrer, Wayne Laughman, Ryan Anderson and Ashley Boyers.
New Oxford set aside time before the meet to honor its members of the Class of 2003 as it was the Colonials' final home dual of the season.
"It was nice to see each of them win in their last time in the gym," Conaway said. "I was hoping that would happen. It's pretty bad to have a senior night and then do be able to win."
Other New Oxford wins were recorded by Rachael Groft, Nate Emlet, Brandon Weibly, Tyler Smith, Gared Chrismer, Jimmy Laughman and Mike Neiderer.
Groft, Weibly and Chrismer garnered pins while Emlet and Anderson registered technical falls.
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American's Llach gears up for state
Wrestler was second last year in girls meet
By Steve R. Waterhouse STAFF WRITER 1/23/04
FREMONT -- After giving up soccer last season for wrestling, senior Leah Llach has made a name for herself at American High.
The 152-pound wrestler finished second in the state last year and anything less would be a disappointment this year.
"I want to be the best in the state," Llach said before practice Tuesday.
Her attitude and hard work caught the eye of coach Dave Elola, who made here a team captain about a month ago.
"Her dedication is as good as any wrestler I've ever had at American," Elola said.
Last week at the Napa Valley Classic, an all-girls wrestling tournament at Vintage High, Llach took first at 152 pounds. So far this year Llach has walked away from her three tournaments with three tournament titles.
The increasing involvement of girls in wrestling has caught the attention of the California Interscholastic Federation. At this year's state championships in Stockton on March 7-8, there will be several exhibition matches for girls.
"The sport is still growing and any attention brought to it is good," Elola said. "They all have to start somewhere."
Llach will compete against boys in some tournaments, but would rather stick to wrestling girls.
"I'm a strong girl and wrestling other girls is something that I'd rather do," Llach said. "But I'll go anywhere they want me. I'll wrestle anybody they want me to."
American is currently 0-1-1 in Mission Valley Athletic League action. And Llach could give the Eagles a boost when it comes to forfeits, something that a lot of schools have done this year.
The wrestling season for girls will end in a couple of weeks with the girls state tournament in Vallejo.
Currently Llach ranks second in the state and wants the opportunity to prove her worth as she goes for a first state title.
"I don't care about what seed I get," Llach said. "None of that matters. I just want to go out and wrestle. I don't care if I'm sixth, seventh or whatever."
As for college, Llach wants to continue to wrestle, but for a girls program if available.
"I definitely want to try it in college," Llach said. "I'm just a little skeptical about the competition higher up. First, I'd like to find a college and then check out the wrestling team