Wilde Lake junior varsity wrestling coach Maria Schweitzer, center, works with Matt Higgins, left, and Peter Rangelev in practice.
News Page
January 26, 2006
ADRIAN BACA, Rio Grande wrestling
The 140-pound junior used to starve himself. Now he eats a Kit-Kat before every practice. Baca, a top contender in his weight class for Friday's city meet with a 24-3 record, talked with The Tribune about how to wrestle a girl and proper - or peculiar - eating habits.
Trib: You're known as Rio Grande's speedy running back on the football team. Does your quickness help you slither your way to wins on the mat like your opponent was a defender you just dodged?
Baca: I feel quick on my feet. It's one of my stronger attributes. I feel like I'm quicker than my opponent and that I can take him down whenever I need to.
Trib: A couple of female wrestlers - West Las Vegas' Vanessa Lucero and Valley's Samantha Montoya - have found success on the high school wrestling circuit and have defeated male opponents. Would wrestling a girl psyche you out? How do you think you'd do?
Baca: I'd probably think about it, about what would happen if I lost to a girl. But I'd still be confident in myself and wrestle her like any other wrestler.
Trib: Do you welcome females to the world of wrestling, or should it be a guy-only deal?
Baca: It's pretty much a guy sport, but if girls want to do it and they can win, I don't mind it at all. As long as they're having fun. They should be treated the same way a guy is, though. Guys shouldn't go easier on them because they're girls.
Trib: Is it true that wrestlers go to great lengths to lose weight?
Baca: It's true. I only need to lose a couple of pounds weekly, so it's not a struggle at all for me these days. But honestly, I have gotten my body weight pretty low. I've done some pretty crazy things to get weight down. It's just the nature of the sport, I guess. I don't know other sports where people would do that.
Trib: What kind of crazy things have you done to shave weight?
Baca: Sometimes I'd put on a couple of sweaters and go run. I would run on a treadmill by the wood stove at my house with a couple of sweaters and a beanie on, so I'd lose weight by sweating."
Trib: What about daily diet?
Baca: Sometimes I would eat a banana or an apple a day and that's it, but that was usually only a day before a match. Sometimes I'd eat an apple and not drink anything all day. That was when I was in the 135-pound class. Now I'm in 140 and it's easier.
Trib: Did you consider your eating habits a health risk?
Baca: When my coaches stressed eating and training right when I started high school, I slowly started to realize that what I was doing wasn't too healthy. I finally stopped and started training right.
Trib: What do you eat now?
Baca: I still eat junk food; I just eat small portions. I eat pizza or breadsticks or nachos for lunch. Maybe a hamburger or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Trib: What are your favorite sweets?
Baca: Chips and candy. I like Kit-Kats, M&Ms, Twix or Sugar Babies. I like Coke and ice cream. I'll grab a candy bar before practice, usually a Kit-Kat, and eat it before I wrestle.
Trib: A meal of champions. Is it nice to know you can sit back and enjoy a nice, fattening piece of pizza and not have to spit in a cup 100 times?
Baca: It's nice. Now I eat like a normal person.
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Female coach takes pioneering position in stride
01/26/06
by Ron Cassie
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Wilde Lake junior varsity wrestling coach Maria Schweitzer, center, works with Matt Higgins, left, and Peter Rangelev in practice. |
When Wilde Lake athletic director Adam Eldridge returned to coaching varsity wrestling this year, he briefly had difficulty filling the Wildecats' junior varsity job. Then he remembered he had a former wrestler in the school with coaching experience - just not experience coaching wrestling.
Not many women do.
Maria Schweitzer, full-time Spanish teacher, freshmen volleyball coach and 28-year-old mother of two little girls, Claudia, 7, and Erica, 2, has added a new title this winter: junior varsity boys wrestling coach.
"I remembered Maria from the early '90s," said Eldridge, who wrestled for Howard and graduated in 1992. "I was looking for somebody in the building. I knew she'd be great in the wrestling job."
Schweitzer was already juggling graduate school and Claudia's ballet lessons, and her husband, George, who played football, basketball and track at Fort Hill High School, thought she might have too much on her plate, but she jumped at the opportunity.
"I love wrestling," said Schweitzer, who grappled at 103 and 112 for four years on some pretty good Wilde Lake varsity teams back then. "Volleyball and wrestling are my two favorite sports. I couldn't play basketball in high school, so I thought, 'Hey, I'll give wrestling a try.'
"I wrestled with some pretty good guys in high school," she continued. "Mike Green won states in 1994. Nate Casella, Bob Ferare, Nick Wyoon, I think they all won county (titles). Carlo Gerstenfeld was a good friend of mine on the team and he won some tournaments and may have won a county title, too. It was a tough team. Those were tough guys and they didn't want anyone whining or complaining. It's not like other sports."
It's also ironic that as the older sister, she credits herself with getting her brother, Mike Romano, a former River Hill standout, into wrestling.
A decade later, Schweitzer is the first female high school wrestling coach in county history, and the best anybody can tell, the first in state history, too. Ned Sparks, head of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, can't remember another woman in the state being paid to coach wrestling, though his office is going to do a little research and check.
Maybe the most surprising thing about Schweitzer's unusual role is everyone connected with the team appears to have simply taken the stereotype-smashing in stride.
Even Linda DeBakey, a senior and the lone female wrestler at Wilde Lake for the past three years, doesn't seem to care too much one way or another that she has another sister-in-arms on the squad.
"It's not a big deal to me," DeBakey said. "I think of her as just another coach."
But whether DeBakey or any of the other handful of girls wrestling this season realize it, back in 1991, Schweitzer was breaking new ground when she became the first female varsity wrestler in Howard County.
There has been a steady trickle of girls wrestling ever since, a few more each year. In 1993, Hammond's Sarah Himmelheber faced Oakland Mills' Stacy Kirschbaum in the first all-female match held in Howard County, and possibly the state. Both were wrestling at the 103-pound classification on the JV level at the time.
Now, with Arundel High School's Nicole Woody winning the 103-pound championship at the Delmarva Classic two weeks ago and Schweitzer moving into coaching, one has to think more girls will be encouraged.
Girls wrestling is growing nationally and internationally, too. Several states offer high school girls wrestling and all-girl state tournaments. A number of colleges have programs and female wrestling has also become an Olympic sport.
But none of that is why Schweitzer, who doesn't consider herself a feminist, "or at least not a hard-core feminist," has returned to the mats with a whistle in hand.
"I just want to coach," said Schweitzer, who coached volleyball for three years at Long Reach. "I really like coaching. If somebody would show me the fundamentals of lacrosse, I'd probably start studying the game and want to coach that, too. Really, anytime someone points out that, 'Hey, there is lady in the room. Watch that kind of language' - or somebody wants to talk about how odd it is being a female wrestling coach, it makes me a little uncomfortable."
Atholton volleyball and longtime wrestling coach Bruce Lindblad isn't surprised the boys at Wilde Lake have taken to Schweitzer as coach.
"Hey, look, Maria's tough and she has a work ethic," said Lindblad, who has known Schweitzer for a dozen years, since coaching her and his daughter Beth's volleyball team at Wilde Lake. "She has a great personality and she's great to be around, but those boys know she has walked the walk, and that means a lot."
The only strange or funny thing that Schweitzer said she has come across is during weigh-ins. She usually sits at the scorers' table and often gets mistaken by the referees as one of the scorekeepers. To the older guys calling the bouts she probably looks like one of the high school team managers.
But to the squad, there is nothing especially different about Schweitzer on match day or in the practice room.
"You think it would be a big deal, but it's not. Sometimes you think people are going to say something, make a joke, but they don't," senior 152-pounder R.J. Beres said. "She's just as tough as any other coach and she drills us pretty hard. She doesn't do a lot of head-to-head stuff, but it's not like she couldn't."
So Schweitzer had the boys' respect right away?
"Oh yeah," Beres said. "She could probably beat most us if she wanted to."
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Osceola girls aiming for another state wrestling title
Andrew Carter | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted January 26, 2006
The perennially strong Osceola boys wrestling team is putting together its best season in recent memory. Still, the program hasn't dominated area competition quite like its female counterpart.
The Osceola girls wrestling team will be trying for its fourth consecutive state championship Saturday.
Osceola will host the tournament, which begins at 9 a.m. and is unsanctioned by the FHSAA.
Osceola Coach Jim Bird said his team isn't as strong as it has been, though other teams might find that hard to believe.
Two Osceola wrestlers -- Breisja Gallo (135 pounds) and Maria Isaac (125) -- are defending state champions. Two others -- Shandanee Todd and Lakia Henderson -- were runners-up a year ago.
The Osceola program is six years old, and Bird remembers the early days when the team consisted of one or two wrestlers.
Now the team has 12, and it's growing in popularity despite popular perceptions that a physical sport like wrestling is for boys only.
"Everybody always says that wrestling is not a girls sport," Bird said. "But when you're wrestling girls against girls, it's OK. There are some tough ones out there."
At Osceola, which has been the most successful girls wrestling program in the state by a wide margin, the sport has grown thanks to wrestlers who try the sport, fall in love with it and then spread the word.
Since girls wrestling is a relatively new sport, Bird has relied on word of mouth to help the program develop.
"That's the only way you can get them," Bird said. "You can't have a sign-up list for wrestling and expect anyone to show up."
Gallo's story is a bit different. She got involved with wrestling her freshman year because her boyfriend at the time "made her do it," she said.
Gallo's relationship with the boy fizzled, but her love for wrestling blossomed.
Now she's one of the loudest advocates for the sport at her school.
"We keep telling people how awesome it is," Gallo said. "It's something that not everyone does. It's new. It's another thing to conquer in life."
At the state tournament, Bird expects the toughest competition for Osceola to come from University, Vero Beach and Poinciana.
Wrestling is associated with masculinity but the girls -- at least the Osceola girls -- add a feminine flavor to it. For instance, the night before the state meet, the team is planning a slumber party. It's part for fun, part to celebrate Henderson's birthday. It's also an example of how tight the team is.
"We're very close," Gallo said.
And very hungry for another title.
"It's going to be awesome [if we win,]" Gallo said. "This is the one year where we have to work the hardest because we lost a lot of seniors."
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By ROBERT COLLIAS, Staff Writer 1/25/06
St. Anthony High School 98-pound wrestler Kelcie Suda is unbeaten in 10 matches this season. The Maui News / ROBERT COLLIAS photo |
WAILUKU – With only three girls wrestlers on the roster, being a member of the St. Anthony High School team can be a lonely experience.
Kelcie Suda knows the lonely feeling – but also the view from the top.
’’Wrestling for St. Anthony, it is not a huge team and being a girl definitely makes it even more unique, I think,’’ Suda said. ’’It’s different. I guess being a girl wrestler for St. Anthony, I don’t want to say lonely, but it is certainly unique. You are not from a big school and girls wrestling is definitely getting bigger, but it is not as big as it is for the guys.’’
Suda is a 98-pound junior who is unbeaten in 10 matches so far this season, including a 7-6 win over Joyce Transfiguracion of Kealakehe – last season’s state runner-up – in the final of the Maui Invitational Tournament last month.
Suda was the Maui Interscholastic League champion in her weight class as a freshman and runner-up to Baldwin’s Kristalyn Daquep last season.
Beating Transfiguracion has helped Suda set her sights on one goal now.
’’To win states,’’ Suda said before practice Monday. ’’That was kind of my goal last year, but I didn’t make it to the top six last year because I ran into Krista at states and lost by one point. Coming out of last year, it definitely drives me.
’’What drives me more, though, is that I was able to beat Joyce Transfiguracion, because she beat me really badly last year at MITs. That win definitely shows me how far I have come.’’
Daquep has graduated, meaning Suda was one of only four competitors in her weight class Saturday at the most recent MIL meet. She won both of her matches by pin, spending a total of 2 minutes, 21 seconds on the mat.
’’Basically this year I am just trying to keep my focus on states,’’ Suda said. ’’In the MIL, there is no real competition for me. (Transfiguracion) is my main competition. You just have to set your eye on the goal, which is states, and stay focused on that, keep working toward that goal.’’
Being on the Trojans’ tiny roster forces Suda to face heavier competition during practice. Teammates Tamra Takeshita (120 pounds) and Tehani Ibarra (103), as well as Ynez Tongson, who graduated two years ago, give Suda her only workouts in the St. Anthony wrestling room – which is so small that it is covered from wall to wall with a single mat.
’’I definitely feel like I am getting better, technique-wise especially,’’ Suda said. ’’You can’t just be strong. It is not enough to just be strong. You have to know your techniques. You need to know what works. You have to be smart about how you wrestle.’’
Suda carries a cumulative 4.3 grade-point average while taking Advanced Placement English. Next year, AP calculus, environmental science and physics will be on the schedule.
’’I think being as smart as she is helps,’’ said St. Anthony coach Tommy Takeshita, whose team has finished third in both MIL scoring meets this season. ’’You need to learn skills and repeat them on the mat. You learn a lot of moves, but you also need to recognize when to use them. It is like boxing. You can shadow box all you want, but against an opponent you have to be able to know when to take your shot.’’
Suda picked up wrestling as a freshman after having studied karate and judo as a youngster. She finished fifth in the state judo meet at 97 pounds last year.
’’Just the way I wrestle is better than when I was a freshman,’’ Suda said. ’’I am able to see my opponents better.’’
After splitting three matches as a freshman with Daquep, but winning the MIL final, Suda lost all three times they met last season, including a one-point defeat at the state meet.
’’I had her in this nice double-chicken wing, but the referee called it a potentially dangerous move,’’ Suda said. ’’We had to set up again, and she ended up beating me by one point in the final 30 seconds at state. It was a real bummer.’’
Beating Transfiguracion has put Suda on the map, however.
’’My coach told me everybody is coming after me, especially after I beat that Transfiguracion girl,’’ Suda said. ’’I was like, ’Oh man, the pressure is on.’ It is definitely a driving force for me. Basically, just the will to win is all I have right now. Knowing that I have everything to lose right now, I know I just have to stay on my game.’’
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Success for FUHS girls at first girls wrestling tournament
1/26/2006 5:27:20 PM
Last Thursday evening the Warrior wrestlers went head to head against the Oceanside Pirates at Oceanside High School. They fought especially hard and both the freshman/JV and varsity teams won!
Then, on Saturday the 21st, Fallbrook’s girls team went to the first-ever Girls CIF 7 Regional Tournament. Fallbrook has had female wrestlers on the team for several years but this is the first year they have had enough girls to make a separate team.
Jennifer Fauskin took fifth place in her weight class and will, therefore, be seeded at the upcoming State Championships. The remaining five girls wrestled well enough to qualify to go as well. The State Championships will be held at Hanford High School in two weeks.
Today the teams have a dual meet at El Camino High School in Oceanside. Weigh-ins are set for 5:00 p.m. with matches scheduled to begin between 5:30 and 6:00. They encourage the public to come out and see them in action.
Tomorrow the varsity team will be going to Canyon Springs High School on Cougar Canyon Drive in Moreno Valley to compete in the Cougar Classic Tournament.
Finally, the team wishes to apologize to Pam Julian for misnaming her Patti in last week’s article while thanking her and her husband Albert for purchasing singlets for the freshman and JV teams.
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Fulp-Allen wins NorCal wrestling title
By MARK FOYER--Half Moon Bay Review 1/26/06
Katherine Fulp-Allen will continue to wrestle in college.
But almost nothing can match the thrill the Half Moon Bay High School senior had Saturday when she won the California Interscholastic Federation Girls Northern Regional Tournament.
Though the CIF, the governing body for high school sports, had given its blessing in the past for state tournaments, this was the first time the CIF name was on the tournament.
"That is a big deal," Fulp-Allen said. "It's good to win the first CIF Northern California tournament."
Fulp-Allen won the 114-pound title and will wrestle at the state tournament in the Central California community of Hanford in two weeks.
She began the tournament by pinning Daisa Blodgett of Pittsburg late in the second round. She followed that with a technical fall win over Megan Wiles of Etna.
Fulp-Allen then knocked off Ariel Green of Sutter, 13-1, advancing to the finals. She claimed the title with a 4-2 win over Alex Tolero of St. Patrick-St. Vincent.
Fulp-Allen clinched the win with a takedown in the second round.
"That was a relief that I was able to perform to such good standards," Fulp-Allen said. "I had been coughing for a while. I have taken a lot of medicine. I did wrestle with a cold last year, and it can drain you."
Maggie Ortiz was the only other Cougar to pick up a win at the tournament, going 1-2.
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Athlete of the Week: Samantha Phillips
Last Updated: January 26, 2006, 04:58:46 AM PST
SAMANTHA PHILLIPS
Manteca wrestling
Phillips, a junior, won the 126-pound weight class at last weekend's inaugural CIF Northern California girls wrestling championships at Whitney High School in Rocklin. Phillips, who's 22-1 against female competition this season, beat Terra Nova's Lisa Szczepaniak 7-1 in the championship match to avenge her only loss.
PARENTS: Ed and Michelle Phillips
FAVORITE CLASS: "AP U.S. History. ... My teacher (Mr. Miller) is great. And I've always loved learning about history."
FAVORITE ATHLETE: "Sayaka Matsumoto. ... She's the world judo champion at 52 kilos."
ON WRESTLING AGAINST THE GUYS: "I also compete for Manteca's boys team. I'm 3-7 against the guys, so it's a lot tougher. They're so much stronger and they overpower me, but I've only been pinned once (by Turlock's Ty Costa) so I feel like I've earned their respect."
ON HER NORCAL CHAMPIONSHIP: "We'd wrestled twice before the NorCal championship and beat each other once. But before the championship match, I studied and studied the tape of our last match where she beat me. I went into our match knowing I was going to win."
NOTABLES: Alicia Reid, Oakdale basketball: Scored a combined 44 points in two Valley Oak League wins for the Mustangs. ... Kim Spinardi, Golden Valley basketball: Scored 27 points in a Central California Conference win over Atwater.
-- WILL DeBOARD