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Bakely and Curry going for state titles

By GEOFF COWLES
News Sports Writer 3/10/06
MOUNT VERNON — Saturday’s USGWA Ohio Girl’s State Wrestling Tournament, to be held at Pleasant Street Elementary on Saturday at 10 a.m., will feature many top female wrestlers from around the state. Among them will be a pair of Mount Vernon girls, Renay Bakely and Lindsay Curry, both of whom are also part of the Mount Vernon High School wrestling team.

Curry, who has had an injury-plagued season, is coming off a very good showing in the Arnold Classic in Columbus. Now healthy, she is ready for Saturday.

“I think I should do pretty good. I don’t know how many girls are going to be there, so I’m not sure. I don’t know what to expect,” said Curry.

Her teammate, Bakely, also fresh from the Arnold classic, said, “I’m just trying to keep my weight down and stuff, and just finishing training. It’s what I have been working for all year. Just trying to keep my focus — that’s it.”

“Renay is a very dedicated wrestler,” said her coach, Mike Oswalt. “She spends a lot of time working out. She has grown in the sport. She has grown in all of her sports. As far as wrestling goes, Renay is ready to go to the next level.”

Both girls were led into the sport by wrestling brothers. Following in thier footsteps is something both girls are used to. Now, though, it is their time to shine.

“My brother wrestles, and it just seemed interesting, so I just started from there,” Bakley said. “I always looked up to him.”

“When Renay started coming in and working with us, we had all the older and bigger girls,” Oswalt recalled, “and there was this little, tiny, skinny girl (Renay) in there, giving it everything she had. We were scrapping every boy around that we could find that was close to her size to be her workout partner. She was determined when she was young to wrestle and she has hung with it.”

Curry had another influence, in addition to her brother.

“When I was deciding to join the high school team, it was Vanessa Oswalt who encouraged me,” said Curry. “It is Vanessa’s dad, Mike Oswalt, who drives me down to Columbus West (High School for practice).”

Mike Oswalt said, “Lindsay has really turned it on the last two years. Her problem has been injuries and that has slowed Lindsay down to the point that she has had difficulties trying to fight back, trying to get back on the mat and trying to get back into the swing of things. In the last few weeks she has stepped up tremendously.

“Down in Columbus (at the Arnold Classic) that was a difficult weight class (110) that she was in and she did really well and she hit a lot of stuff that she had hit in the past,” said Oswalt.

The decision to wrestle was more of a foregone conclusion for the 100-pound Bakely, who said, “I have been going to wrestling since I was little, so I have been around it pretty much all my life.”

Neither girl seems to be bothered by the fact that there is no girls-only wrestling in state high schools.

“I’m not really bothered because wrestling with the (boys) teams really helps me a lot more. Guys are a lot stronger. Wrestling against stronger people helps,” said Bakely.

Curry encounters very few problems, in spite of being the only girl at some tournaments.

“The guys are pretty good about it,” explained Curry, who mentioned that, once in a while, a parent of an opposing team member might be uncomfortable with the fact that she is a girl.

“Someone was talking to my mom at a tournament where I was the only girl,” said Curry, He was saying stuff to my mom about a girl wrestling. My mom told him, ‘Oh that’s my daughter out there,’ he didn’t know and he said, ‘Are you serious? You don’t mind her out there with them?’ Then he wouldn’t talk and went off somewhere else.”

It takes plenty of quickness and finesse to compete with the boys, but there is also seasoning. Conditioning is also important in a sport like wrestling.

“It just comes from experience and years of wrestling,” Bakely said. “I go running. I play softball and I go from one sport to another. I play soccer, softball and I wrestle, so I remain in shape all year. I run and play in other sports and that just keeps me in shape.”

“We have girls practice on Mondays and Wednesdays (at Pleasant Street Elementary),” said Curry.

They also regularly attend a girls clinic with a number of other area wrestlers down at Columbus West.

Although neither girl has decided on her future, both are considering Cumberland College, the top school for women’s wrestling in their future.

“I am not sure if I want to wrestle because I want to be a nurse and wrestling takes up so much time. I’m really not sure.” said Curry.

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Girls ready to square off against state’s best

By GEOFF COWLES
News Sports Writer 3/10/06
MOUNT VERNON — Get ready, because some of the best female wrestlers, in and out of the state of Ohio, will soon be converging in Mount Vernon.

Saturday at 10 a.m., Pleasant Street Elementary School will play host to the USGWA Ohio State Girls Open Wrestling Tournament.

The Mount Vernon team will be coached by John Brown and Mike Oswalt, who also coach the wrestling team at Mount Vernon High School. The team will include all age groups.

Among the notables who will attend are Renay Bakley (USGWA ranked 12th at 134 pounds) and her teammate, Lindsay Curry, both of whom are fresh from competing at the Arnold Classic last weekend in Columbus.

Mount Vernon has played host to this event every year since its inception.

“This is our eighth year,” said Oswalt. “We were the first state tournament other than up in Michigan — where it was founded by (USGWA Director) Kent Bailo, who contacted John (Brown) — and we were actually the second ones to have a state tournament. We started out with 40 to 50 girls and we are hoping to hit the 120 mark this year.”

“When they first had the nationals, we had some girls around who had done some wrestling,” Brown said, “so I said, ‘Let’s send them up (to Michigan) and see how they do.’ We sent 10 or 12 girls to the first national tournament. One girl placed — Heidi Lybarger. The guy (Bailo) got hold of me the next year and said, ‘Let’s start having state tournaments. Do you want to hold it?’ and I said, ‘We’ll hold it,’ and we have held it ever since.”

Now, the USGWA sponsors 42 state tournaments across the United States.

Currently, the Ohio High School Athletic Association does not sponsor girls wrestling. Girls are allowed in Ohio, as in many states, to wrestle against the boys.

Only Texas and California have sanctioned girls high school wrestling. This year, a girl, Michaela Hutchison, won the Alaska state tournament, wrestling against boys. This marks the first time any girl has ever placed first in a state wrestling tournament.

Progress in girl’s wrestling has been slow, and there is still a long way to go.

“The one thing that slows this sport down in comparison to others is the physical contact and aggressiveness,” said Oswalt. “It’s not like basketball, that has a lot of technique. This is hands-on, physical toughness, and there’s not as many girls that are that interested in that type of sport. But the more it is catching on, the more girls are converting from cheerleading and gymnastics, they are adapting and doing quite well.”

Title Nine, college scholarship opportunities and Olympic recognition are great. It may, however, take a few more athletes like Hutchison to sanction girls wrestling in high schools nationwide.

Oswalt’s daughter, Vanessa, is an Olympic wrestling hopeful, but the road there has not been easy.

“With the girls’ wrestling, we had no idea at all that there was anything out there,” said Oswalt, who heard from the parents of a young wrestler who told him about the Saunders Open Tournament in Michigan. “We said, ‘Let’s take her up here and see what she can do,’ from there, that kind of opened the doors. We met some of the wrestlers and they gave us contacts.”

From there, Vanessa started going to tournaments and started wrestling in the middle school.

As for any Saturday tournament predictions, Oswalt hesitates, saying, “We have a lot of girls from in state that are on the border line that can really do well. As far as out-of-state girls, it’s really a toss-up — we don’t know who that could be.”