News Page
Paying the 'Price' for success
By: Sean Moylan, Sports Writer 03/31/2005
The Northern Burlington County Regional High School coed varsity wrestling squad's season has been over for weeks, but sophomore standout Brandy Price's wrestling year is just beginning.
Recently Price, wrestling at 114 pounds, took 10th place out of 27 wrestlers at the United States Girls' Wrestling Association National Championship in Michigan on March 19-20.
Wrestlers at the tournament medalled up until 12th place so Price was able to take home some hardware. She wrestled seven bouts over the course of two days and she won four of them.
Although she was not as successful as she hoped, Price was glad she competed in the 2004 Nationals.
"I was happy I went last year because I got (valuable) experience," said Price, who knew what she needed to do this year to medal.
Price has been very busy as of late. She placed first in the Pennsylvania State Tournament on March 5th.
"I had five matches and I pinned in them all," said Price, who wrestled at 114 pounds in that one too.
In the Mid-Atlantic Girls' Wrestling Tournament on March 4th, Price took second overall.
Of course, it's much easier to dominate when you've been a member of one of the best wrestling programs in South Jersey for seven years as Price has.
NBC goes three or four wrestlers deep at nearly every varsity weight class. Therefore, like most of the Greyhounds, Price had to wait her turn just to get varsity bouts. Yet she wrestled well in all four of her varsity matches and her first varsity win came against a McCorristin 119-pounder.
"I pinned him in the second period on a cradle," noted Price.
Price posted a 6-7 junior varsity record.
"This year was a real good year for me. The varsity matches you have are really good matches," said Price, who wrestled at both 112 and 119 pounds. NBC puts nothing but strong teams on its schedule. Price's schedule is so busy she literally needs both of her parents working overtime just to get her to where she needs to go.
Her father takes her to the tournaments in the tri-state area while her mother makes the long trips with her.
Right now Price is training to wrestle in several freestyle wrestling tournaments, the most important of which will be a National tournament in Fargo, North Dakota this summer.
Wrestling takes incredible strength and endurance. That is why Price ran cross country this past fall and it's the reason she is currently running the mile on the girls' track and field team.
This past winter, she loved seeing her team take home the District 25 title. However, she wants to win a starting varsity spot next year.
"I'm hoping for 112. I have a better chance at 112," said Price, who'll try to maintain her current wrestling weight.
Already she's looking at various colleges. She's like to eventually study veterinarian medicine. For now, though, Price is a "full-time" wrestler and the people of Northern Burlington couldn't be happier.
------------------------------------------------------------
Lower Township’s Haley Messinger takes it to the mat
By YVETTE FORREST For The Press, 3/31/05
"The Future of Wrestling" is the first phrase that appears on the United States Girls Wrestling Association Web site.
The USGWA home page shows two girls competing on the mat of a huge arena.
Girls wrestling is a growing phenomenon. It's not just for boys anymore. Lower Township resident Haley Messinger is an example of how a female can compete in this male-dominated sport.
Haley, an 11-year-old 5th-grader at Sandman Consolidated School in Lower Township, became interested in the sport four years ago.
"I went to sign up my 8-year-old son Jesse (for a recreational program) and Haley (then age 7) said, 'Oh, I'll give that a shot,' " her father, Jesse Messinger, said. "I was a little hesitant at first, but my wife (Karen) was all for it."
Things started slowly for Haley. It took time for her to learn the sport. She began practicing with the boys twice a week in the Lower Township recreation program.
"They just think of me as just another boy," Haley said, "but it's fun."
Jesse Messinger is Haley's trainer in the offseason.
"We have a room here at home where she trains," her father said. This year, she won at 80 pounds at the USGWA New Jersey state championships in Hackettstown. She was fourth in her weight class March 18 in the USGWA national championships at Lake Orion, Mich. When Haley competes on the state and national levels, it is the only time she wrestles against girls.
Wrestling has a strong following, from club teams to the Olympic stage. Male programs can be found across the world at middle schools, high schools and colleges.
Women's and girls programs are starting to increase - with at least 15 varsity women's wrestling teams in Canada, according to TheMat.com. There are a handful of varsity college programs in the United States, but club teams are the rule. Women's wrestling made its first Olympic appearance at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Greece. U.S. women earned silver and bronze medals in the freestyle competition. Although there are many states that have high school girls wrestling only Texas and Hawaii have all-girl programs with official state championships, according to TheMat.com.
"A lot of people think there aren't a lot of girl wrestlers," Jesse Messinger said, "but there are more and more every day. The sport is growing."
Many area recreational wrestling programs include girls, but there are none known to have all-girls teams.
Lower Cape May Regional High School, where Haley would go in four years, does not have a girls wrestling team. Girls who want to wrestle join the boys team.
"I would still join," Haley said. "I wouldn't mind at all."
Jesse Messinger hopes the sport will have a better following by then.
"It all depends on how girls wrestling is promoted," he said "We'll just see how it develops."
------------------------------------------------------
By Dennis Anderson 3/31/05
Hawaii Grown Report
DANIELLE HOBEIKA / AMATEURWRESTLINGPHOTOS.COM
Kapua Torres went undefeated to capture her weight class at the National College Wrestling Championship last week.
Their sport is young and the spotlight on them is not so bright.
There is no TV, no reporters, hardly an audience, and only a handful of competitors, but the pride of accomplishment that swells in the hearts of Hawaii's two newly minted national champions is as great as in any athlete who clutches gold as the best in the land.
Kapua Torres of Kahuku and Selina Perez of Waiehu, Maui, won titles at the Women's National College Wrestling Championship on Saturday in California.
Torres, a 2003 Kahuku graduate, is a sophomore at Pacific University in Oregon and Perez, a 2003 Baldwin graduate, is a sophomore at Missouri Valley College.
Only five teams scrapped it out before a crowd of about 50 at little Menlo College, south of San Francisco. There are only six "solid" college programs in the land and one of them, defending champion Cumberland of Kentucky, didn't come.
Two weeks before, a nationwide television audience and a packed arena in Saint Louis, Mo., saw Travis Lee (Saint Louis, '01) win his second NCAA men's wrestling championship in a field of 32 who were the best from 85 teams in NCAA Division I.
Some of the pioneers in the women's game think it will grow exponentially, like women's soccer did in the 1980s, as acceptance of the sport grows.
"Within the next three years, the number of teams will triple or more," says Missouri Valley coach Carl Murphree.
The women's tournament was not sanctioned by the NCAA or NAIA, but was an independent competition for colleges with women's teams.
Murphree found it noteworthy that five of the eight national champions on Saturday came from Texas and Hawaii, the only states that have sanctioned high school championship tournaments.
When women's wrestling makes its mark, it will revere pioneers like Iolani alum Jill Remiticado, who started the program at Pacific, the eight women from Hawaii who are in U.S. Olympic development programs and national champions like Torres and Perez.
Torres has been ranked No. 1 nationally in the 112-pound division most of the season, but didn't really believe it until Saturday. Now she has set higher goals.
"I hope it says that I am peaking," she said. "I want to qualify for the (U.S.) World Team Trials in June." That would call for a top-six finish at the Senior Nationals in late April.
"Kapua is starting to develop a mastery over what she does," said Pacific coach Scott Miller. "She is learning to trust her body and go where it (instinctively) wants to go.
"We've seen it coming," he said. "She has gotten much better with her shot. She is coming up to her finishes quicker and she responds (to her opponents' moves) much quicker than in the past."
Quick response is what won the 176-pound championship for Perez.
In the final she had a familiar opponent -- Pacific freshman Ashley Truchan of Hilo.
"I had wrestled her in high school and I knew her style," Perez said. "I studied her preliminary match and decided to set it up where I could counter that action.
"She tried a lateral drop. I countered it and pinned her in the first round."
It was also a victory for Perez over the anxiety that naturally comes after a serious injury. She had torn her left ACL in the same gym last March.
"I was real nervous at first," she admitted, but a pep talk from Murphree between rounds of the preliminary calmed her. "She is just starting to get confident on that knee," the coach said.
Missouri Valley freshman Sadie Kaneda (Roosevelt, '04), who placed fourth at 105.5 pounds; Pacific freshman Jazmine Cockett (Kamehameha '04, fourth at 130); and Truchan also won All-America designation.
Conspicuous by her absence at the nationals was Missouri Valley sophomore Stephany Lee (Moanalua, '02), a member of the U.S. National Team who tore the ACL in her right knee while defeating Russia's Olympic silver medalist in Moscow in January.
Lee underwent reconstructive surgery two weeks ago and will be in rehabilitation for six months.
Lady Vikings win college nationals
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
By Chris Allen/Sports Editor
|
|
ATHERTON, Calif. -- The Missouri Valley College women's wrestling team claimed gold medals in six of eight weight classes Saturday to defend their title in the U.S. College Nationals at Atherton, Calif.
The second-ranked Lady Vikings had nine medalists tally 69 points during the event to outpace Pacific (Ore.) by 30 points. However, absent from the field were Cumberland (Ky.) -- No. 1 in the latest poll by TheMat.com -- and six of the nation's top-rated American college wrestlers. Only one weight class had more than four entries in a total field of 32 grapplers.
Still, Valley compiled an aggregate 18-6 record, with juniors Brooke Bogren (59 kilograms) and Kelly Branham defending their titles. Bogren won two of her three bouts by fall and Branham (67 kg) was named "outstanding upper weight" wrestler with two victories.
Freshman Rachel Billerbeck (63 Kg) also won three matches, the first via pin, to place first. Sophomore Erica Chew won the round robin with two 55-kilogram foes, as did freshman Brittney Jones (72 kg) -- winning the finals by fall. Sophomore Selina Perez likewise won the gold-medal match in short order, taking only 42 seconds.
The two heaviest weight classes demonstrated the skimpiness of the field. The two highest-ranked 72-kilogram wrestlers -- Cumberland senior and U.S. Olympian Toccara Montgomery and Valley sophomore Stephany Lee, who met in the finals a year ago -- weren't entered. Only one ranked 80-kilogram wrestler -- No. 8 Pacific freshman Ashley Truchon, pinned by Perez -- was present, the other two moving up in weight class.
The two top-ranked wrestlers who competed both claimed titles. Menlo (Calif.) sophomore Sara Fulp-Allen was first at 48 kilograms -- where Lady Vikings freshman Sadie Kaneda finished third by splitting four bouts -- and Pacific sophomore Kapua Torres defeated Valley sophomore Maika Watanabe for the 51 kg crown, 2-0, 6-0.
The Vikings will be at home for the first time this season Saturday to host the MVC Showcase, an open event with age groups from 8-and-under up to amateur Seniors -- including the top-rated Lady Patriots of Cumberland.
------------------------------------------------
Wrestlers from Hawai'i win at nationals
By Leila Wai 3/30/05
Advertiser Staff Writer
Two female wrestlers from Hawai'i captured national championships at the second annual Women's National College Wrestling Championship Saturday at Menlo College in Atherton, Calif.
|
|
Pacific (Ore.) sophomore Kapua Torres won the 112.25-pound class and Missouri Valley College sophomore Selina Perez won the 176-pound division.
Torres, a 2003 graduate of Kahuku and the top-ranked wrestler in the nation at 112.25 pounds, went 3-0 through the bracket, scoring pins in her first two rounds over Lassen's Ashley Nethercott and Sabrina Lancelletti. In the championship, Torres beat Missouri Valley College's Mika Watanabe, 6-0, 7-1.
Torres finished second in last year's national championship, falling to Missouri Valley's Debbi Sakai, a 2003 Mililani graduate. Torres is the Boxers' 11th national champion in wrestling, and the fifth in women's wrestling.
Perez, a 2003 graduate of Baldwin, pinned Pacific freshman Ashley Truchon, a graduate of Hilo, in 42 seconds for the championship.
Perez lost in the second round to Rachel Knight of Lassen, 5-0, 1-3, 6-0, and Truchon pinned Knight in 1:39 in the first round.
Missouri Valley College's Sadie Kaneda (Roosevelt, 105.5 pounds) and Pacific's Jazmine Cockett (Kamehameha, 130 pounds) both finished fourth in their respective divisions.
Other Hawai'i finishers:
105.5 pounds
Fourth place, Sadie Kaneda (Missouri Valley College, Roosevelt '04)
Semifinals — Laura Felix (CSU-Bakersfield) dec. Kaneda, 6-0, 6-0
Round 1 — Amantha Hordagoda (CSU-Bakersfield) dec. Kristin Fujioka (Pacific, Castle), 6-0, 5-0
Kaneda dec. Valerie Prise (Pacific), 6-0, 6-0
Consolation finals — Amantha Hordagoda (CSU-Bakersfield) dec. Kaneda, 4-0, 2-0
Consolation semifinals — Kaneda dec. Fujioka, 4-3, 2-0
Fifth-place match — Valerie Prise (Pacific) pin Fujioka.
Consolation second round — Fujioka dec. Damaris Burrius (Lassen), 5-1, 3-1
Consolation first round — Fujioka dec. Kate Uhalde (Lassen), 4-0, 3-0
130 pounds
Fourth place, Jazmine Cockett (Pacific, Kamehameha)
Finals — Brooke Brogen (Missouri Valley) pin Laurin Daniels (Menlo), 00:31 2nd; Brenna Larkin (Pacific) dec. Jasmine Cockett (Pacific), 2-0, 1-1.
Semifinals
Cockett dec. Laurin Daniels (Menlo), 7-1, 3-4, 2-0
Round 1 — Brooke Brogen (Missouri Valley) dec. Cockett, 2-0, 5-0
--------------------------------------------
2 national champions in growing sport
Kahuku's Torres, Baldwin's Perez wearing gold
Posted Thursday, March 31, 2005
By Dennis Anderson
Hawaii Grown Report
BY JOHN SACHS, www.tech-fall.com Pacific's Kapua Torres (in black) re-arranges the face of Missouri Valley's Mika Watanabe in the 105.5-pound championship match at the Women's College Nationals.
BY JOHN SACHS, www.tech-fall.com Missouri Valley's Selina Perez, of Maui, pins Pacific of Oregon's Ashley Truchon, of Hilo, in 176-pound championship match Saturday at the collegiate national championships in California. ----------------------------------------------------- Also at Missouri Valley: Clarissa Calibuso (Moanalua '99) and Tanya Miyasaki (Castle '02) returned to college wrestling after extended breaks. Calibuso helped coach at her alma mater for three years and is in her second year at Missouri Valley. "She is learning to be a student and it's starting to come together for her," Coach Carl Murphree says. "She has taken over a leadership role. She might surprise some people at 121 (pound division) at Las Vegas (the Senior Nationals April 28-30)." Miyasaki attended junior college the past three semesters. She transferred to Missouri Valley in January and needed a lot of work to get back into competitive shape, Murphree said. Her first competition will be this weekend in MoVal's "Showcase" tournament.
BY JOHN SACHS, www.tech-fall.com Missouri Valley's Sadie Kaneda and her opponent are a tangle of arms in collegiate national championships. Fourth-place 105.5-pound finisher Sadie Kaneda (Roosevelt '04) is "very good and not so good — a typical freshman," Murphree says. "She has quickness and the ability to learn from her mistakes." Kaneda was ranked No. 3 in the nation in February. She was the HHSAA 108-pound champion last year and the 103-pound champion in 2003. Chaneal Meletia (Hawaii Baptist '04 of Haleiwa), 2004 HHSAA champion at 140 pounds, and 105-pounder Angelee Honma (Aiea '03), 2003 HHSAA champion at 98 pounds, also are at Missouri Valley. Stephany Lee (Moanalua '02) is the most highly regarded of the current wrestlers from Hawaii. She has been on the National Team the last three years, and has Pan American Games and University World championships on her resume. Lee, a three-time HHSAA champion, hopes to return to full strength in six months from the ACL tear she suffered in January. Missouri Valley's alumnae include current U.S. Olympic Development Program residents Clarissa Chun (Roosevelt '99 of Kapolei), Donnell Bradley (Radford '99 of Aiea) and Debbi Sakai (Mililani '03).
|
Their sport is young and the spotlight on them is not so bright.
There was no TV, no reporters, hardly an audience, and only a handful of competitors, but the pride of accomplishment that swells in the hearts of Hawaii's two newly minted national champions is as great as in any athlete who clutches gold as the best in the land.
Kapua Torres of Kahuku and Selina Perez of Waiehu, Maui, won women's national collegiate wrestling championships Saturday in California.
Torres, a 2003 Kahuku graduate, is a sophomore at Pacific University in Oregon and Perez, a 2003 Baldwin graduate, is a sophomore at Missouri Valley College.
Only five teams scrapped it out before a crowd of about 50 at little Menlo College, 30 miles south of San Francisco. There are only six "solid" college programs in the land and one of them, 2004 runner-up Cumberland of Kentucky, didn't come.
Two weeks before, a nationwide television audience and a packed arena in Saint Louis, Mo., had seen Travis Lee (Saint Louis '01) win his second NCAA men's wrestling championship, beating a 32-man bracket who were the best from 85 teams in NCAA Division I.
Some of the pioneers in the women's game think it will grow exponentially —like women's soccer did in the 1980s — as acceptance of the sport grows.
"Within the next three years, the number of teams will triple or more," says Missouri Valley coach Carl Murphree.
Murphree found it noteworthy that five of the eight national champions on Saturday came from Texas and Hawaii, the only states that have sanctioned high school championship tournaments.
The HHSAA has sponsored a girls wrestling championship since 1998.
When women's wrestling makes it mark, it will revere pioneers like Iolani alum Jill Remiticado, who started the program at Pacific, the eight women from Hawaii who are in U.S. Olympic development programs, and national champions like Torres and Perez.
Torres has been ranked No. 1 nationally in the 112-pound (51 kg) division most of the season, but didn't really believe it until Saturday. Now she has set higher goals.
"I hope it says that I am peaking," she told Hawaii Grown this week. "I want to qualify for the (U.S.) World Team Trials in June." That would require a top-six finish at the Senior Nationals in late April.
"Kapua is starting to develop a mastery over what she does," said Pacific coach Scott Miller. "She is learning to trust her body and go where it (instinctively) wants to go."
Torres says that learning the freestyle used in college was a challenge, but "I'm coming around. I'm improving on my feet and in my defense.
"I'm finding out what is working for me and it's feeling a lot more natural now."
Coach Miller agrees. "We've seen it coming," he said. "She has gotten much better with her shot. She is coming up to her finishes quicker and she responds (to her opponents moves) much quicker than in the past."
"She was the class of her weight by far — she overpowered both of the girls she wrestled."
* * * * *
Quick response is what won the 176-pound (80 kg) championship for Perez.
In the final she faced a familiar opponent — Pacific freshman Ashley Truchan of Hilo.
"I had wrestled her in high school and I knew her style," Perez said. "I studied her preliminary match and decided to set it up where I could counter that action.
"She tried a lateral drop. I countered it and pinned her in the first round."
It was also a victory for Perez over the anxiety that naturally follows a serious injury. She had torn her left ACL in the same gym last March.
 |
"I was real nervous at first," she admitted, but a pep talk from Murphree between rounds of the preliminary match calmed her. "She is just starting to get confident on that knee," the coach said.
Missouri Valley freshman Sadie Kaneda (Roosevelt '04), who placed fourth at 105.5 pounds; Pacific freshman Jazmine Cockett (Kamehameha-Oahu '04), fourth at 130; and Pacific freshman Ashley Truchon, second at 176, also won All-America designation
Conspicuous by her absence at the nationals was Missouri Valley sophomore Stephany Lee (Moanalua '02), a member of the U.S. National Team, who tore the ACL in her right knee while defeating Russia's Olympic silver medallist in Moscow in January.
Lee underwent reconstructive surgery two weeks ago and will be in rehabilitation for six months. She hopes to get back on the mat in September.
Missouri Valley won the team championship and Pacific was second.
"The women have their own identity now," Pacific's Miller says. "They are no longer in the shadow of the men."
Pacific (Oregon) freshman Jazmine Cockett's arm is raised in victory at the collegiate national championships on Saturday.
