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Top Of Their Game
Local Junior Women's Grapplers Berner, Conway Finish 1-2 In State
By DWIGHT ESAU 6/30/04
Journal Reporter
Good friends off the wrestling mat, fierce competitors on it.
That's the relationship between Dallas Monreal-Berner of Niles and Laura Conway of Des Plaines, who just happen to be the top two women's junior freestyle wrestlers in the State of Illinois.
They recently finished 1-2 in the Junior Women's Freestyle Tournament at Lincoln Way-East High School in Frankfort. Laura, a recently graduated senior at Maine West High School, held her own with the nationally ranked Monreal-Berner for one period in the championship match. But Dallas, who will be a junior at Niles West High School this fall, won on a fall in the second period to take the title.
So Dallas and Laura are the two top wrestlers on the Team Illinois group that will travel to Fargo, North Dakota, in July for the U.S. National junior women's tournament.
Dallas and Laura are now sparring partners as they train for the nationals.
"My goal is to place in the top eight at nationals," said Laura. "That's an attainable feat at this point in my development as a wrestler." She got an encouraging boost toward that goal from Monreal-Berner. "All Laura needs is lots of mat time and she will start to climb the rankings, she has a good attitude and is not discouraged when she has a bad bout," Dallas said.
"Dallas is a real threat to win it all this summer, she is working hard, has avoided serious injury, and has been improving every time she wrestles in competition," said Niles West coach Chuck Corrigan. "She has dedicated herself to the long haul, to compete in more and more national and international competitions. She is setting her sights high and there is no reason she can't succeed. She has real quality and is driven in this most demanding sport," he said.
Laura will attend MacMurray College this fall and plans to wrestle there. Dallas will return to Niles West this fall and will be wrestling in IHSA competition this coming winter.
Team Illinois is training at the University of Illinois in Champaign starting next week. Corrigan said the team should be a strong contender in both the individual and team competitions in Fargo.
Wrestling is now a year-round sport at Niles West High School, there is a freestyle program in the spring and summer, there is a kids wrestling summer camp in conjunction with the Skokie Park District, and the Team West Wolves Wrestling Club for grade school boys and girls is held in the fall and winter.
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Lady Spartan is 2008 Olympic hopeful in unlikely sport
By BRAD LEMNA, Staff Writer 6/29/04
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SUMAVA RESORTS - This coming fall, she will be a freshman at North Newton High School. And like this last school year, she won't be joining her friends on the cheerleading squad, as she has done for nine years in the past.
But what Michelle Weber will be doing is continuing her quest to be the best at her passion - wrestling.
"I love wrestling," she declared. And she's not fooling around. She gave up cheerleading, a big love of hers, so she could devote 100 percent of her efforts to wrestling.
This impressive young lady wears her victories on her sleeve - 12 in all just from the past wrestling season at North Newton, where she was predominantly pitted against boys. An equal opportunity regulation called Title Nine allows her to compete where once only boys did, and her coaches are happy to have her on board.
At 14 years old, she holds aspirations to be on the 2008
U.S.A. Olympic Wrestling team. On May 8, at the Indiana Women's State competition held at Lawrence High School in Indianapolis, Weber received a state medal to add to a growing collection. And, according to trainers, coaches and others of authority, the odds against her to achieve her Olympic goals are not so bad.
For the full story, read the July 1 issue of the KV Post-News
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Alaskan a surprise contender in women's wrestling
BY MERI-JO BORZILLERI
The Gazette 6/30/04
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - (KRT) - Wrestler Tela O'Donnell lives in a
dorm room at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, a long way from home.
Home is Homer, Alaska, where gender barriers are as rare as sunshine in
winter.
"There's nothing you can't do," said Tela's mom, Claire O'Donnell.
Including be a woman and wrestle.
Tela has made Homer, a place where the sun shines five hours a day in
winter, feel warm all over. She's the first Summer Olympian in Homer's
history, making the 2004 Olympic team last month. Women's wrestling
makes its Olympic debut in Athens.
Her high school principal, who doubles as a wrestling coach, and her
mom are among those planning the trip from Homer.
"Of course I am," Claire said. "I would go in a casket if I had to."
To get there, Tela pinned national champion and world No. 2 Tina George
in one of the trials' biggest surprises.
Another surprise - Tela did it in her first year on the U.S. national
team.
Don't expect her to follow the crowd. She learned by example the value
of going her own way. Homer can do that to a person.
It's a town of 5,000 about 200 miles south of Anchorage, where Alaska
Highway1 deadends in a five-mile sand spit that pokes into Kachemak
Bay, part of the Gulf of Alaska.
Homer is known as the place "where the road ends and the sea begins,"
said Susan Cushing, wife of Homer's mayor.
It's also where Tela got started, born to a single mother who spent
five years clearing her own land and building a two-story house for the two
of them.
"My mom's really tough," said Tela. "She doesn't do things
conventionally."
Pregnant with Tela, Claire O'Donnell lashed a pillow to her belly to
keep the chainsaw's growl from causing harm to her child's ears.
"You need a house, you build it," said Claire by phone from Homer.
"You're a woman, so what? So wrestling wasn't an appropriate sport for women. So
what? You just follow your heart's desire. That's what I liked about Homer."
Their homestead, shared with chickens, horses, turkeys and sheep, is
one of two homes on a shared 40-acre parcel of land 10 miles from town down a
dirt road.
It's so remote, Claire has to think a moment before remembering the
house number in her address. When she went into labor with Tela, Claire had
to change a flat first before driving herself to the hospital.
Wilderness was the back yard. One afternoon, Tela watched a grizzly
climb up their porch and peek in the window.
Before Tela started wrestling in eighth grade, she tussled with sheep
so her mom could shear them.
"The poor sheep," said Claire. "She would wrestle it to the ground and
would hold it there. I was terribly slow, but I didn't hurt the sheep."
Fences were few. If Tela wanted to ride her pet horse, Wingo, she'd
have to yell and maybe hike for a couple of hours to find him.
Tela worked summers at Tutka Bay Lodge, a wilderness lodge where she
was a groundskeeper and cook. Sometimes she'd work a salmon drift net.
"It was a nice place to grow up," she said.
Homer runs in her veins. It is present in her dorm room, where her
guitar is just a request away, and Alaska figurines occupy conspicuous posts on
her countertops.
It's present in her photo album, eagerly produced to show a visitor
pictures of a remote community with a stunning shoreline and big sky.
"She's a free spirit," says women's coach Terry Steiner.
It's there too, in the haunting despair of one of her oil paintings, a
portrait of an elderly man working as a janitor because he can't afford
to retire.
A sign proclaims Homer the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. Salmon
fishing is big too, and tourism. It is located on Kachemak Bay.
"I'm not used to cities," Tela said. "I like the woods. I'm pretty
independent."
O'Donnell hasn't been back in almost two years. Homer has not forgotten
her.
A bouquet of flowers, sent by the town's city council, sits on a table.
Days before, Homer's chamber of commerce sent a big envelope with Homer
promotional materials, a newspaper clipping of its recent high school
graduation (she knew some kids getting diplomas), and a Homer hat and
pin.
"That's so sweet," she said, opening the package in the training center
dining hall.
"We follow our children closely, and when they make it this far we
certainly want to make them recognize they're exceptional," said Jack Cushing,
Homer's mayor.
When asked, Tela points out she's not Homer's biggest celebrity.
There's Jewel, the singer, and Tom Bodette, the Motel6 guy.
Claire was a mime in Chicago who studied under the famed Marcel Marceau
before moving to Homer.
"Homer's a good place to raise a kid but not to be a mime," Tela said.
So Claire switched to landscaping and dried flower arrangements. She
didn't utter a peep when her daughter played junior varsity football, or
started wrestling in eighth grade.
Tela washed out at football, where she played safety and some guard,
and didn't do well at soccer either. In fact, she didn't like sports in
general.
"I'd try to hide during recess," she said.
Junior high teacher Deb Lowney knew how to reach Tela. Compete against
yourself, she said. Find a sport where you can express your
individuality.
First it was running. Then it was wrestling. Now she's going to the
Olympics, and taking a big chunk of Homer with her.
Said the mayor: "We're proud of her."
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Who: Tela O'Donnell, 2004 Olympic wrestler
Age: 21
Hometown: Homer, Alaska
Years on national team: 1
Resides: U.S. Olympic Training Center, Colorado Springs
Height: 5-4
Results: 2004 Olympic trials champion; 2004 U.S. nationals runner-up;
2003
World Team trials runner-up; 2003 national champion
Weight class: 55 kilos/121 pounds
Olympic competition dates: Aug. 22-29
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Tela O'Donnell won a berth on the 2004 U.S. Olympic women's wrestling
team.
Past summer Olympians from Alaska:
Donald Gene Clary, Jr., born in Anchorage
Track and field
1984
5,000-meter run
Semifinalist
Peter Waller Lash, Jr., born in Anchorage
Team handball
1984, 1988
12th, ninth
Diana Lynn Olson, born in Anchorage
Rowing, eight with coxswain
1992
sixth
Adam Setliff, born in El Dorada, Colo.
Track and field, discus
1996, 2000
12th, fifth
Kristen Joy Thorsness born in Anchorage
Rowing, eight with coxswain
1984, 1988
Gold, did not compete
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