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Grappling girls
Vallejo boasts top two teams
By DAN NIED/Times-Herald sports writer
Article Launched: 04/15/2007 07:21:26 AM PDT
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LIVONIA, Mich. - The crowd's buzz comes in constant electrical drones, permeating background noise, punctuated with the occasional cheer.
A few hundred high school girls, along with a few dozen parents and coaches, are responsible. This is the big one, and the city of Vallejo - with more than a decade of girls' wrestling under its belt - is well represented.
Look to the right. There's a girl in a singlet and a horror-movie black goalie mask contraption; she's jumping like the crazy person she looks like, stretching her muscles in a manic, creepy and oddly beautiful way.
Look to the left: Another high school girl in a black singlet. With her hair buried under a skull cap, she almost looks like a boy. But the tears streaming uncontrollably give her away. In the world of gender equality, she is breaking down barriers and feeding stereotypes all at once.
But who can blame her? She has come from California or Texas or Hawaii or any number of states to this auxiliary gym at Churchill High School in this Detroit suburb just to compete in her sport's biggest tournament. The tears come hundreds of times over the course of the day. A wrestler loses her final match, and for a moment breaking down barriers doesn't matter as much as letting the emotion of the moment flow.
In two gyms, 11 final matches for high school and middle school girls are being held. It's a Sunday, the second and final day of the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association National Championships.
Those tears won't stop. "Businesslike" isn't a word that comes to mind, either for the athletes or the coaches.
At one end of the gym, a coach rages d as his wrestler's shoulders inch closer to the mat. The referee is waiting for that exact moment when he can pound the rubber.
The coach lets loose. "You just pissed this one away, little girl," he screams. It isn't long before the tears return.
The tournament testifies to the power of girls' wrestling in Vallejo, which just might have the nation's best collective group of high school female wrestlers.
Yhis year, Vallejo won its third straight state title in girls' wrestling, though the honor isn't recognized by the California Interscholastic Federation.
The VHS win was something of an upset, since crosstown rival Hogan High was seen as the favorite. Hogan ended up finishing second.
So figure that California, with 335.5 points, was by far the top state at the USGWA national tournament, and the two top girls' wrestling schools in California are in Vallejo.
Waiting, watching
Now, the state champions are in Livonia. They sit patiently on the other side of the gym: the four members of the Vallejo High girls' wrestling team who made the trip.
Angie Miller, the bubbly junior, is awaiting her national championship match at 138 pounds. Mary Jane Fernandez and Jennifer Avelino are there, too, although they bowed out of the tournament the previous day.
The Vallejo High students sit cross-legged on the edge of the mat because the girl in the middle, Jennifer Fernandez - Mary Jane's sister - is silently preparing for her third-place match in the 100-pound class. Jennifer sits silently, her slight build hidden under an oversized T-shirt and her expression blank.
Look at her and wonder how this girl, just a few months ago, helped lead the charge for girls wrestling in the Bay Area and how her teammates and their immediate city rivals are, in a way, leading a national movement.
Jennifer Fernandez was a part of history in February when she and Hogan High's Krystalle Alcantara became the first girls ever to qualify for the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters meet.
Alcantara came to Livonia, too - along with eight others in the Hogan contingent. In her first trip to the USGWA Nationals, the senior pulled off an unexpected run through five matches to win Hogan's first-ever national title.
After Miller lost her national championship in quadruple overtime, Vallejo High could claim only Michelle Domagas in 2000 as a national champion. But the close calls continue to pile up.
The high school championship matches are littered with girls from Northern California, but no city is as well-represented as Vallejo - which, with Miller and Alcantara, is the only city with two girls in the finals.
Sister vs. sister
Even with that kind of success, the weekend had its disappointments. Vallejo coach Mike Minahen believed all four of his wrestlers had a chance to finish in the top six and take home All-American honors. While Jennifer Fernandez wound up fourth, she was forced to eliminate Mary Jane on the first day to get there.
The two sisters wrestled each other in their third matches, leaving Minahen fuming about a seeding system that would pit teammates from the same school - let alone the same family - on the same side of the brackets.
In a way, Alcantara saved Hogan's weekend. Going in, 154-pounder Monica Gonzalez was one of the favorites to win a national title. But Gonzalez, battling injuries, bowed out after losing her first two matches. Alcantara's unlikely run more than made up for it.
No other Hogan wrestler placed in the high school division. However, former Spartan Jessica Ortiz took second in the collegiate freestyle division and second in collegiate folkstyle.
Current Hogan products Alice Hoover and Christine Alcantara each took a fourth in collegiate freestyle.
Even if every goal was not met, Vallejo still produced a national champion, a runner-up and three fourth-place finishers.
Alcantara is about to pull off her monumental upset, wrestling in a cat-like defensive style, sprawling to counter every shoot from Michigan's Kristi Garr. When the two are circling each other, Alcantara playfully rubs Garr's head.
In a break in the action, Alcantara raises both hands above her head, creating a linear silhouette more befitting a catwalk in Milan. It is, by all means, nothing that would happen in a boys' match.
Alcantara sweats out a 6-4 win and celebrates with Manibusan and Ortiz, who were in her corner.
Afterward, Manibusan assesses her performance: "Krystalle wrestles like a girl. She stands up and she catfights. She looks like a girl, she acts like a girl. And it throws everybody off."
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Coaches cut girls no slack
No special treatment in male-dominated sport
By DAN NIED/Times-Herald sports writer
Article Launched: 04/15/2007 07:21:27 AM PDT
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No girl could survive Mike Minahen's practices. In his first 10 years as Vallejo High School's wrestling coach, Minahen watched about 10 girls come out for the team.
None, he says, returned for a second practice. He prided himself on giving every wrestler a fair chance, and he wouldn't change the intensity of his practices to accommodate girls.
So when Julie Gonzalez showed up in the fall of 1994, Minahen expected a short visit. But Gonzalez also came for day two. She made it through a week, and a month, and a season. By the time she graduated in 1996, Gonzalez had laid the foundation for girls' wrestling in Vallejo.
"I didn't want to make a statement," Gonzalez said. "I just wanted to try something new."
Gonzalez opened Minahen's eyes.
"Until Julie, I didn't think there was a girl alive that could handle our workouts," Minahen said. "It was very sexist of me, but over the course of the first 10 years of my career, I had never had a girl come back for two practices. I just think she really wanted the opportunity to prove herself.
"It was evident early that this girl wasn't going away. She was excellent, I mean outstanding. She just opened the door at Vallejo High. She became almost a figurehead of the girls' movement around here because she was so good."
As Gonzalez kept wrestling and other girls turned out for the Vallejo wrestling room, the boys had no practical choice but acceptance over friction. To this day, Minahen says, the team hasn't had many gender-related conflicts between members.
"Whenever a wrestler walks into our room, we're gender-blind," said Vallejo's assistant coach, Carl Lastrella. "We don't see them as male or female. Everybody has to do our exercises, regardless of what their gender is."
Girls started infiltrating the Hogan High program around 2000. The roster kept growing until the 2006-07 season, when the team featured 16 girls.
"I don't know how we got numbers," Hogan coach Ric Manibusan said. "I guess it was the leader of the group (that came out), and it hasn't stopped since."
The girls' program started to sprout roots with the success of Ereene Belimide and Jessica Ortiz, who finished second in the unofficial girls' state championship in 2006.
Today, Gonzalez is the coach of the California Junior National girls' team. However, her greatest legacy likely remains at Vallejo High. After Gonzalez cleared out, Michelle Domagas continued making a name for herself at Vallejo, eventually winning the school's only national championship to date.
Along with Domagas came Sheila Lerit, who would win a girls' state championship and go on to wrestle at Menlo College. Then came Lauren Knight, who won a state championship in 2006 and now wrestles at Cumberland University in Kentucky, one of the nation's best programs for women.
The Apaches have won the last three California team state titles and Miller won the individual state title at 138 pounds in February.
But perhaps the most impressive, and telling, feat of any girl this year is Vallejo's Jennifer Fernandez and Hogan's Krystalle Alcantara's march to the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters tournament - one step before the CIF state tournament.
"That was really exciting," Fernandez said. "I walked in and it was really big. I'm not used to big crowds and I don't like people watching. Being in that stadium, it got me nervous, but afterward I wanted to come back next year and hopefully place and go to state."
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Matchups vs. boys shift traditional roles
By DAN NIED/Times-Herald sports writer
Article Launched: 04/15/2007 07:21:27 AM PDT
Vallejo's Mary Jane Fernandez practices with Lastrella. (Mike Jory/Times-Herald) |
When Vallejo High 103-pound wrestler Jennifer Fernandez beat two boys to finish third at a section tournament in February and clinch a spot in the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters tourney, she struck a blow for her gender.
A few minutes later, Hogan's Krystalle Alcantara finished fifth in the same weight class, also clinching a Masters spot.
They were the first females ever to advance to the Sac-Joaquin Masters and they had to beat a slew of boys to get there.
While Fernandez and Alcantara each went winless at the Masters, their mere presence suggests that the gap between boys and girls is narrowing.
Though strength and development issues make it unlikely for girls in higher weights to compete against the top boys, girls in lower
Some think it is only a matter of time before a 103-pound girl makes the state tournament. Future predictions aside, Alcantara and Fernandez made a big breakthrough at Masters.
"I think it is wonderful; I think it is amazing," said former Hogan wrestler Jessica Ortiz. "It proves that girls wrestling is the same as boys wrestling. We are just as good and we work just as hard. We learn the same moves and there is no reason why anyone should look down on (girls wrestling)."
Over the last decade, girls have gained acceptance in the high school wrestling community. But they are still looking for full club membership.
"It's hard to get respect," said Pacifica Terra Nova High senior Marina Piccolotti, an unofficial girls state champion and national runner-up this year. "You are never going to be completely accepted by all the males in this sport. It just isn't going to happen."
Locally, girls and boys coexist peacefully on teams. However the girls acknowledge that since they aren't expected to beat the boys, they get a little bit smug when it happens.
"I think it crushes their dignity really bad," said Vallejo High's Angie Miller. "I think they feel if they get beat by a girl they are a wuss or a loser or something."
There shouldn't be any shame in losing to Miller. The 138-pounder won an unofficial state championship this year and finished second at the national tournament earlier this month.
Monica Gonzalez won the unofficial state championship for Vallejo High last year and finished second for Hogan this year, but says she still is taken lightly by boys.
"It's a different experience than wrestling girls just because boys underestimate me," Gonzalez said. "They get shocked when they wrestle me because I am really strong. When they go out there with me I am a really tough competitor. They are usually not poor sports about it."
When Napa High's Alyx McChesney began wrestling as a junior last season, she said she met some resistance from boys on the team. She used that for inspiration.
"Half of them were like 'Oh you are wrestling, you can't handle it. It is too hard for you,' " McChesney said. "That just made me strive harder to prove them all wrong."
When girls started wrestling with Hogan in 2000, coach Ric Manibusan found himself in an awkward position.
"At first it was pretty hard, the girls were getting a lot of attention," Manibusan said. "We were trying to even up the attention. The guys took it OK because they respect the coaches. But they didn't give the girls any leeway; they made them work. In the last couple of years, the girls teams have made themselves known to be equals."
Equality seems to be the trend, especially around Vallejo. But while the girls wrestling movement continues forward, total acceptance might always lag.
"I've heard some stories about guys getting upset because they didn't want to wrestle girls," Miller said. "They'll try to hurt them."
Vallejo's coaches won't change their style for girls. As assistant Carl Lastrella points out, sometimes tough love on the mat is required when coaching a tough 138-pounder like Miller.
"I try not to go as hard on the little ones, but against Angie, I go just as tough (as I would against boys)," he said. "The other day, Angie elbowed me in the face and gave me a bloody nose. To get her back I headbutted her twice. I am not going to let her get away with punishing me. She is as physical as they come."
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Gender bending
Females in a male sport ... but why?
By DAN NIED/Times-Herald sports writer
Article Launched: 04/15/2007 07:21:27 AM PDT
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As the number of girls wrestlers surges into the thousands statewide and to more than 3,500 nationals, the prevailing question from outsiders rarely changes.
Why would girls want to participate in a sport so dominated by boys that only a scarce few schools offer girls-only teams?
For some Vallejo and Northern California girls, wrestling came about as something to do after school. Some fell into the sport to be with friends.
Still, others were following in family footsteps.
"My brother always beat me up when I was little," said Hogan High's 154-pounder Monica Gonzalez, whose brother Bobby won a state title with Vallejo High in 2003. "So it was me wanting to try to defend myself when he beat me up. But then, I really found a love for the sport."
Vallejo High's Jennifer Fernandez began wrestling when she was a seventh-grader at Springstowne Middle School.
"My friend told me I should do a sport and I was like, 'yeah I will try,' " Fernandez said. "My friend said I was strong, the next day I talked to the coach."
Five years later, Fernandez would become one of the top girl wrestlers in California and one of the first to make the CIF Masters tournament.
When Jessica Ortiz, Hogan High's most successful girls wrestler ever, began as a sophomore, staying on the team became an economic decision combined with one to head off boredom.
"My best friend wanted to try something new," Ortiz said. "She ended up quitting and I bought my gear and I didn't want to waste money so I stuck with it. I liked having something to do after school. I would have just been at home."
Still, wrestling is a family business for some.
Gonzalez was a natural fit in the wrestling world not only because of her brother's success, but because her father, Robert, wrestled at San Francisco State and served as an assistant coach at Vallejo High for years.
But to some girls, wrestling just looks like fun. When Sami Hoover's family moved to Vallejo from Walnut Creek a few years ago, she caught the wrestling bug.
"My sister's boyfriend was doing it, and I said, 'ooh that looks cool,' " said Sami, now a sophomore at Hogan High. "It was a class you could take instead of gym at Springstowne, so I just stuck with it."
After Sami started, younger sister Alice joined up, too.
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Taylor defends state wrestling title
Appeal-Democrat
April 14, 2007 - 11:23PM
Ashley Taylor won her second straight girls California middle school wrestling championship, and Andria Anderson also won a state title at the meet held at Springstowne Middle School in Vallejo on Saturday.
Both girls, who attend Yuba Gardens School in Olivehurst, were 4-0 with two pins at the meet. Taylor won 11-6 in the finals, and Anderson won 12-6.
The girls were part of a 12-member Alicia-Gardens team comprised of wrestlers from Alicia Intermediate School in Linda and Yuba Gardens.
Eleven of the wrestlers placed in the top six of their divisions: Katie Redden (Yuba Garden, 3rd, 80 pounds); Youa Xiong (A, 3rd, 85); Destiny Teasley (YG, 3rd, 120); Evalee Hawkins (A, 3rd, 245); Symphony Pierce (A, 4th, 140); Brittany Huhtala (A, 5th, 155); Kalina Smiley (A, 5th, 155); and Naevah Her (A, 6th, 110).
The squad was third out of 40 teams.
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