Elizabeth Lewis, a senior at West Brook High School, holds some of her medals from wrestling this season. Lewis has been wrestling most of her high school years, first in Florida, and now for the Bruins.
News Page
By Geoff Cowles, News Sports Writer
08:17 AM, Monday, March 13, 2006
MOUNT VERNON — Nearly a hundred female wrestlers, representing communities from in and around Ohio, squared-off Saturday at Pleasant Street Elementary School in the 2006 United States Girls’ Wrestling Association Ohio Girls’ Open Tournament.
Mount Vernon coach and tournament organizer John Brown said, “I think that it went really well. We had the highest (participation) that we have had so far. We had 95 girls and I thought that it ran really smooth.
“I was really pleased with how the Mount Vernon girls did this year. A lot of the first-year girls got a win. I thought that was outstanding for them to come in and do that. I was real pleased with how they turned out and how the tournament ran,” said Brown.
Lindsay Curry led the charge for the Mount Vernon girls as she defeated Erica Bowling of Cleveland, 15-13, in the final match to capture first place in the 116-pound high school division.
Curry had pinned a pair of opponents in her first two matches, including eventual fourth-place finisher Mallory Perry of Mount Vernon.
In her third match, Curry defeated Emily Anderson, a past nemesis of hers. “I just wrestled Emily at the Arnold Tournament (in Columbus) and she pinned me there,” said Curry, “so I was really nervous. She got me stuck in a head and arm lock the last time and I wasn’t ready. So, this time, I just stayed out of headlock.”
Bowling had Curry tied up in Round 2 of the final match and was leading in points. Brown, who was kneeling on the edge of the mat, called out to her, “Turn hard into her, Lindsay!” Curry, suddenly spun, reversed Bowling and popped up off the mat. The look of disbelief on Bowling’s face was telling.
“I just saw her on the other side of me, so I just turned and got her,” said Curry.
Curry was able to contain Bowling, in Round 3 of their match, to take first in her class. “She (Bowling) was pretty strong,” said Curry. “I really couldn’t do anything except to hold her down there.”
Brown said, “I think that she (Lindsay) did a great job. I was very pleased. In her finals match, she got herself down and made a few mistakes, but never quit wrestling. She came back strong, caught (Bowling) on her back and won the match 15-13.”
One hundred two-pound class runner-up Renay Bakley of Mount Vernon had a difficult day as she was hampered by a recurring rib cage injury. Engy Mostafa of Toledo defeated Bakley to take first. “When she threw me — when I tried to stop it — I just kind of twisted and it brought back all of the pain that I had before,” said Bakley. “After that, it just kind of messed me up and I was not able to do as well as I should have.”
Katelyn Stickley of Mount Vernon made an impressive showing, finishing third among a field of older and more experienced girls at the 129-pound class. Stickley defeated Katy Yoder, 11-8, in her first match. Jennifer Peabody finished first, pinning Stickley in the final match. “I was satisfied with my first match,” said Stickley, “I had my mental toughness totally and that helped me through it a lot. I think that I lost all my mental toughness in my last match. The first thing to give out is not your body — it’s your mental toughness.”
Among the middle-schoolers, Heather Watts of Mount Vernon lost an 8-3 decision in the finals to Jessica Antoine of Melrose to finish second in the 176-pound class.
Mount Vernon’s Bridget Fawcett took third at 129 pounds, while Abby Gilligan of Gambier was third in the 115-pound class.
Lindsay Curry’s younger sister, Katie, was runner-up in the 103-pound middle school class, losing to class winner Emma Hanks of Garfield Heights.
Jessica Leaman of Utica took third place in the 95-pound middle school class with a pair of wins, including a pin.
Haley Brown of Mount Vernon defeated Christine Kanor of Akron in the 82-pound middle school class to place second. Brown went on to the final round where she lost a 2-0 decision to winner Felicia Kozub of Medina.
“This is definitely a step in the right direction (for girls wrestling),” said John Brown, “I am real pleased watching the progression and the technique of the girls increase each year. We get a lot more close matches and not as many runaways. We are getting more and more girls who have technique and talent at this level and I think that is great.”
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By Robert Lopez, The Enterprise 03/10/2006
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Elizabeth Lewis, a senior at West Brook High School, holds some of her medals from wrestling this season. Lewis has been wrestling most of her high school years, first in Florida, and now for the Bruins. |
Lisa Marie Varon, a.k.a. Victoria, thinks professional wrestlers can be sexy and tough.
Elizabeth Lewis, an amateur wrestler and senior at West Brook High School is pretty, but she's mainly interested in being tough, and isn't keen on the theatrics of professional wrestling - though she does concede having good laugh every now and then at it.
"In (amateur) wrestling you stay in a circle, not a ring," she said. "You don't go hitting people with chairs" as in the sporting entertainment.
In the past decade women have become increasingly visible in the wrestling world, at all levels from high school to the Olympics. The WWE, which will be staging its RAW show at Ford Arena Monday night, features about a dozen women (or Divas as they're known in the organization's lingo), including Victoria, Stacy Keibler, who recently garnered acclaim for her ballroom dancing skills on "Dancing with the Stars," and Candice Michelle, who appears on the cover of next month's Playboy and will be singing copies at Books-A-Million in Beaumont on Monday.
But wrestling can be very different things in amateur and professional circles.
The notion of females in wrestling has not always conjured up positive connotations. Women long had been involved as props in the choreographed soap operas of pro-wrestling, though as early as the 1950s Lillian Ellison, a.k.a. the Fabulous Moolah, was grappling on the mat. In the 1980s comedian Andy Kaufman became infamous for taking on females in his intergender wrestling league (he was the only male in it).
Kent Bailo, director of the United States Girls Wrestling Association, said he believes women began participating in the more subdued worlds of high school and college wrestling in the late 1970s. The total number of women in scholastic programs is not known, but Bailo counts about 3,500, including three Olympians in his organization.
"Around the country there were six girls who placed in boys state high school tournaments," Bailo, a former referee who lives in Ortonville, Mich., said. "Those girls think they get better competition wrestling boys, and some of them would tell you they wouldn't want it to be sanctioned as a girls event, only because they think it would lessen the level of competition. I don't know if that's true or not. There are a lot of tough girls out there."
Rules vary by state, but most places allow coed teams, Bailo said. Texas, where the sport is governed by the University Interscholastic League, does not, and most girls' teams in the state are made up of small groups or in some cases a lone individual. Females are allowed to practice with the boys though.
"You get better technique," Lewis said. "I'm pretty even with them, the guys. If they get me in a certain move they can get me, but if I get them in a certain move I can get them. I'm 102 pounds. I'm 5'8 almost. I got an advantage.
In the 102 weight class, it's a lot of short guys."
The 17-year-old Lewis began wrestling in ninth grade on a dare from her older brother Robert, also a wrestler. She went to a practice and found she loved it. She currently is recovering from a shoulder injury, but this year was one of three girls at West Brook to wrestle.
The sport tends to attract a good mix of women, Chuck Brown, state director of women's wrestling for Texas-USA Wrestling (the state affiliate for the sport's national governing body), said.
"The competitiveness has a lot to do with it," he said. "A lot of times these kids have been involved in martial arts, and here's another sport they can take part in high school. Or sometimes they're just not basketballers or volleyballers."
Many of the WWE's females come from the modeling and body building worlds. Michelle, who also appeared in the GoDaddy.com commercials sending up Janet
Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," isn't the first wrestler to appear in Playboy. Sable and Chyna, have showed off their buff birthday suits, among other lovely grapplers.
Victoria, the WWE wrestler, said she was a tomboy growing up, having to defend herself against three older brothers.
A San Bernardino, Calif., native, she was a pre-med and biology major at UCLA and had intended on going to medical school. In 1997 she met future wrestler Torrie Wilson in a fitness competition, and three years later Wilson invited her to go backstage at World Championship Wrestling (which has since been absorbed into WWE).
"They asked if I would be interested in doing a segment, and they let me borrow some clothes," she said in a telephone interview. "And I sat on Randy (Macho Man) Savage's lap."
The WWE long has been derided as a chauvinist spectacle, and even Victoria admits "the bra and panty matches aren't the girls' favorites." But she said the game isn't all cheesecake.
"We're athletes; we're not getting exploited," she said. "Anytime we can go for the championship belt we are there, and we are going to do whatever is possible to become the champ."
Lewis, though, can do without the pyrotechnics or skimpy outfits that are signatures of the WWE.
"I'm not a fan of it at all," she said. "It's just a big soap opera. The girls have to have an issue every week."
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Gripping tales from wrestling tourney
Gregory Kane3/13/06
Also making history was a wrestler in the 4A/3A 112-pound weight class. No, tournament attendees didn't see a typo when they read the name "Helen Maroulis" 11 notches down on the bracket sheet. "Helen" is the wrestler's real first name, and she is a girl.
She also placed sixth at 112 pounds, becoming the first female to place in the MPSSAA wrestling tournament. And it was no fluke.
I printed out the bracket sheets from the MPSSAA regional and state tournaments. Maroulis competed in the 4A/3A west region. She came in with a record of 27 wins and only five losses. She pinned her first opponent, Jason Chen of Springbrook High School in Montgomery County. Chen was no slouch himself. He had a record of 19 wins and seven losses.
Sean McCarty of Northwest High School in Montgomery County - who would win the regional and then place third in the state tournament - pinned Maroulis in the next round. But Maroulis came back to beat Jason Lessans of Wootton High School and Joe Hancher of Walt Whitman High School in the consolations to place third in the regionals.
Hancher won 23 matches this season. Lessans won 35.
At the state 4A/3A public school tournament, Maroulis won by injury default over the more than capable Jarrid Bosque of Chesapeake High School in Anne Arundel County. Then Edwin Randall of Northern High School in Calvert County pinned Maroulis, but it took him five minutes and 29 seconds of a six-minute match to do it. (By comparison, Randall pinned Mervo's Lamone Wilson in only one minute and 32 seconds.)
Maroulis then went on her reign of terror in the consolation bracket. She beat Hancher for the second time in as many weeks by a score of 16-4. She beat her next opponent by four points and then lost to McCarty again and then to Bosque to place sixth.
When Maroulis was done, she had beaten, in two weeks, five guys who had won a total of 138 matches among them. Three of her four losses in that stretch were to guys who eventually placed second and third in the 4A/3A state public school tournament. Maroulis is just a ninth-grader. By the time she starts dating, any guy getting out of line with her might get a bent-leg Turk ride slapped on him.
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2006 Female Cadet and Junior International Wrestling Tour
Germany and Austria
Destination: Dormagen, Germany and Goetz, Austria with Munich
Travel Dates: May 31st -June 17th , 2006
Included: The tour includes international airfare, full room and board, ground transportation abroad, sightseeing, cultural activities, wrestling competitions, training camps, sports accident insurance, USA Wrestling Sanction and equipment package (warm-up, tee-shirt, singlets, gear bag, misc. items).
Age Group: FILA Cadet and Juniors
Program: Team USA will participate in two international wrestling tournaments each followed by an international training camp.
The first competition will be the Grand Prix of Germany in Dormagen, Germany, June 2-4. Following the event will be a training camp that will feature several countries. Team USA will then travel south by train to Goetz, Austria to participate in the Austrian Ladies Open, which will be held June 9-10. Following the event Team USA will stay an additional six days to participate in its second training camp.
The last day of the tour will be spent sightseeing in Munich, Germany.
Cost: $2,086 per person
Options: Travel Insurance
Payments: 50% Due by April 21st / Balance Due by May 21st
Departs from: New York (Athletes are required to provide own transportation to NY)
Required: Valid U.S. Passport and USA Wrestling Membership Card, FILA License.
Notes: A limited amount of space may be available for family members.
Contact: Wade Genova
World Sports Alliance at (719) 265-6005
Official International Exchange Coordinator of USA Wrestling
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Athlete of the Month: Tascosa wrestler continues dominance
By Travis Harsch 3/12/06
travis.harsch@amarillo.com
For the Title: Tascosa's Angel Diaz wrestles Hereford's Georgette Villegas during the 110-pound final at the girls state wrestling meet last month at the Delco Center in Austin. Diaz won the match for the state title, her third title in four years.
Steven Dearinger / Globe-News Correspondent
TALK AMARILLO
"Coach Morris, not Morrison, has really turned that program around. They will crack the rankings soon I am sure. Dont be decieved by Claudes record. They lost to Canyon (who hasn't) Canadian, Panhandle, both who are ranked in 2A and Wellington. Wellington and Canadian are both in the Miami tourny this weekend. Might be fun to watch Coach M. go against his old team........." - From HS Football Fan [Join this discussion]
No one had won three state girls' wrestling titles since the sport was first sponsored by the UIL in 1999.
That is until Tascosa's Angel Diaz took to the mat last month.
Diaz, the Amarillo National Bank Athlete of the month for February, wrapped up her third title in four years at the state meet on Feb. 25 in Austin against Hereford's Georgette Villegas, 19-4, to win her second straight title in the 110-pound weight class. Diaz won the 102-pound class as a freshman.
"I've been to nationals and I've seen some really good ones, but as far as any girls competition, she's the best I've ever seen," Tascosa wrestling coach Johnny Cobb said.
"She's just so determined. She does not like losing. She's got that determination and that hard-nosed attitude."
Diaz gives a lot of the credit for her success to Cobb.
"I had the opportunity to be coached by a great coach," Diaz said. "When I first started, I wasn't really good with my takedowns, and that's something Coach taught me. That's what I mostly use now."
Cobb said Diaz has improved on the form that won Diaz her first state title in 2003.
"Technically, she's developed some more skills," Cobb said. "She was always just tough and hard to beat, but she never minded being coached and learned a lot of technique."
Diaz was tied with Villegas at the end of the first period in the final, the first time Diaz had not led at the end of the opening two minutes in any of her three state meet appearances. But Villegas had some insight into Diaz's moves that her previous opponents lacked.
"Hereford came over and worked out with us the week before state," Diaz said. "I didn't think I would see her in the finals, so I was teaching her how to counter different stuff, and when I wrestled her, she started using it to counter me."
Diaz rallied in the second and third periods for the win and her third state title. She plans to attend the University of the Cumberlands in Willamsburg, Ky., to wrestle.
"She's the complete package," Cobb said. "She's not only got dogged determination, but she's got talent and great technical skills, and she's also not afraid to work at it.
"When you put all of that together, I expect to see some great things from her on the college level."
Diaz is the first to win three UIL titles. Caprock's Tori Adams won two titles before wrestling was sanctioned by the UIL, and the first two UIL state titles in the 148-pound class in 1999 and 2000.
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Chalk Talk: Erica Torres preparing for trip to National Girls' Wrestling Tournament
By Brian Williams, The Porterville Recorder 3/13/06
Remember not too long ago, Feb. 4 to be exact, Granite Hills High wrestler Erica Torres won the California Girls Invitational Tournament at Hanford West High.
In wrestling circles it's considered the “unofficial girls state championship.”
By winning the 122-pound division, she can represent California in the National Girls' Wrestling Tournament, April 1 and 2, in Lake Orion, Mich. The event is sanctioned by the United States Girls Wrestling Association.
First, she has to come up with some cash - enough to cover airfare, lodging and meals.
Erica's coach Marty Kouyoumtjian and her mother are going to make the trip with her. Her father would like to also go.
Money is not really a sticking point. From what I hear, they will get Erica there even if they have to take out a loan. Of course they'd like to not do that which is where the gracious citizens of Porterville can jump in and help.
The Granite Hills Booster Club is accepting donations to help defray the cost of the trip.
If you are wondering about the character of Erica, I can tell you she has a 3.12 GPA in college prep classes and is definitely worthy of the support.
Plus, the donation is tax deductible. When making a contribution, please make it out to the Granite Hills High Booster Club with a note earmarking it to Erica Torres-National Girls' Wrestling Tournament.
For more information, call Granite Hills High.
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Jan-Christian Sorensen 3/8/06
jsorensen@nsnews.com
photos submitted |
AFTER a year's hiatus, the Carson Graham Eagles girls wrestling team is back on top in British Columbia.
The Eagles pinned three gold and two bronze medals to set the pace at the B.C. High School Wrestling Championships held in Prince George on the weekend. The girls collected 69 points to win the provincial title, while Balmoral racked up 52 for the bronze. St. Thomas More sandwiched between the two to win silver with 65 points.
On the boys side of the draw, the Eagles wrapped up the tourney in seventh place, while Rick Hansen, Burnaby Central and Alberni District were the top three squads, respectively.
The Eagles last ruled the province in the 2003-'04 season, when they downed a perennial powerhouse in Alberni District at the B.C.s.
"It feels pretty good to be champions again," said Eagles coach Tom Larisch. "It was a complete team effort. Every single one of the eight girls we brought up there did something to contribute to the win. They all wrestled exceptionally well."
In all, North Shore girls struck gold at the B.C.s seven times, bringing home two silver and three bronze medals as well.
Balmoral's Michiko Araki won gold in the girls 40-kilogram class, with her teammate Emma Watt finishing second. St. Thomas Aquinas' Nicole Lim won the bronze.
Balmoral's Kikuko Araki stole silver in the 43-kg class, while another Balmoral Baron, Katie Taylor, won gold in the 47-kg division. Carson's Jenna Robinson finished atop the 51-kg class, while her teammate, Emily Weekes, brought home the bronze.
Grade 12 Andrea Cordero-Sapien of St. Thomas Aquinas won the 57-kg title - and was also singled out as the most outstanding female wrestler at the tournament.
"It's a great honour because the award is chosen by all the other coaches," said her coach, Joe Galat. "She's essentially undefeated this season. Only in a couple tournaments has she been scored upon, and in the provincials she only had three points scored on her.
"She has really come along this year. In Grade 10 she struggled with some health issues but in Grade 11 and 12 she has really turned it on and has been extremely valuable to the team both as a player and as a coach. She's not only in it for herself. She really gives back, which is wonderful."
Carson Graham Eagle Lisa Bjornson finished third in the 60 kg class, while Susan Mehain of West Vancouver and Carson's Deni Torgeson both won gold in the 64- and 69-kg divisions, respectively. Carson's Sandi Ware also grabbed the gold in the 90-kg weight class.
The boys on the North Shore team scored a pair of gold medals at the meet in addition to one silver and one bronze. The gold medals went to Carson's Mark Daligdig (41 kg) and Ryan Kerluck (90 kg), while Windsor's Lucas Unger finished second in the 38-kg class and Argyle Piper Connor Hoy pinned a bronze medal in the 45-kg division. Kerluck's championship final match against Kulbir Gill was voted the most outstanding boys match of the tournament.
"He had an exceptional tournament," said Larisch. "He walked through the first three opponents and didn't have a point scored against him. He just destroyed them. And he had one of the most exciting matches I've ever seen in the final.
"He five-point threw his opponent in a back suplay and in certain tournaments (that move) is legal, but in the B.C. championships they've deemed it illegal for safety reasons so he didn't get the points for that but it was amazing to see. He only got thrown on his back once but got off and then systematically beat the guy. It was an amazing match to watch."
Larisch credited the Carson alumni for helping the school to maintain its status as a provincial contender year after year. Former Eagles wrestlers Ryan Fulton and Shannon Lambie both returned this season to help coach the kids on the mats, and most of the local coaches - Larisch, Sentinel's Naomi Errico, Windsor's Bob Miraftab, Balmoral's Ian McDonald and Argyle's Ryan Edgar, for example - graduated from Carson Graham.
"We obviously have a very strong feeder-school system with Ian McDonald at Balmoral, but there is just something special about this school with regards to kids coming back and helping out, which enables (the athletes) to relate to the coaches. It's something about the school and the experience that keeps these kids interested in the sport."
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