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By Kathy-Ann Gobin

THE NEWS-TIMES

Sitting on the edge of a chair in a stuffy gym, Diana Mauceri, a sometime beauty pageant contestant, shouted encouragement to Ridgefield High School wrestlers.

But Mauceri is no cheerleader.

The 18-year-old senior is one of two girls competing for the Tigers varsity wrestling squad in the 119-pound weight class. When it's her turn to hit the mat, no one pulls harder for her than the other four girls on the junior varsity and varsity squads.

On a recent afternoon, they watched anxiously as Mauceri battled for 3 minutes, 33 seconds with a male opponent from Darien High. She twisted and turned out of his holds and drove her shoulder into his chest before he outmaneuvered her and, ultimately, pinned her.

Mauceri was undaunted. In her third year on the team, she has won eight matches and lost 13.

"This year is the year I buckled down and started pinning people down," she said.

She is also buoyed by the success of junior varsity teammate Lauren deWalt, who later pinned her male opponent in a 145-pound match. As the referee resolutely raised her hand, a jubilant deWalt turned to face her teammates, who jumped to their feet to applaud her.

Mauceri, deWalt and their female teammates are part of a national trend. A decade ago, girls on high school wrestling teams were considered novelties. These days, they are becoming mainstays on some squads.

The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that 1,907 girls wrestled for teams in 26 states in 1997-98, more than double the total from three years earlier. Some estimates put current totals at more than 2,300 girls.

Four states now hold high school wrestling championships for female competitors, and the women's sport has gained a foothold at the collegiate level.

Of the 94 high school wrestling programs in Connecticut, 23 had at least one female member during the 1997-98 school year, with a total of 36 girls competing. A decade ago, said Michael Savage, executive director of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, there was just one girl wrestler in the state.

Ridgefield is not the only school in the region with female wrestlers. Pomperaug High School in Southbury has two, and Newtown and New Milford have had them in recent years.

"It's not the big thing that it once was that you (as a male wrestler) have to wrestle a girl," said Ridgefield High Athletic Director Chip Silvestrini.

The trend is fed by Title IX federal legislation passed in the 1970s that gave female students an equal opportunity in sports and fueled by growing social acceptance of women in once male-dominated pursuits.

Pat Pollak, president of a local chapter of the American Association of University Women, which works to remove barriers to women, is encouraged by the increased participation.

"Breaking the stereotypes, that's very difficult to do, and that's what they're doing with this," Pollak said.

It pays dividends, she said, when young men grow accustomed to dealing with women as equals. As an example, she cited the controversy over whether women should serve on submarines with men.

"If it starts early that these girls mix and compete at a younger age . . . later down the line it becomes more acceptable."

Many of the girls who wrestle smash the stereotype that only tomboys would be interested in this, or any other, rough sport.

Mauceri is a slim brunette with blonde highlights who wears sparkle make-up and eyeliner. She was the first runner-up for the hostess position at the Miss Southern New England segment of the American Teen Coed pageant in 1997-98.

The two broken noses and bruises she has suffered in her three-year wrestling career can be easily camouflaged with make-up, she said nonchalantly.

She got her start in the sport when her older brother, Joseph, who was on the varsity wrestling team in 1994, would come home and practice his moves on her.

"She was either tossed on the mattress or on the couch," said JoAnn Mauceri, Diana's mother.

Junior Varsity teammate Andrea Moix said she had a similar introduction to the sport.

"I'm used to hanging out with guys and that's the kind of stuff that they do. So I just got used to it," she said. "Since I was little, I wanted to be an ultimate fighting machine."

Moix is walking proof that the sport can be rough. Her right arm is in a sling after she broke her collar bone in the third match of the year. Her record at that point was 1-1.

Despite her injury, she is undeterred. "I want to be a WWF wrestler," she said. "If I'm going to be a WWF wrestler I've got to start somewhere."

The girls are reluctant to talk about how they differ from their male teammates. But there are unquestionably things that set them apart.

Some girls wear form-fitting caps to prevent long hair from getting pulled or tangled during matches. On occasion, matches are stopped so girls can readjust caps that have been partially pulled off.

Low-cut singlets are augmented with sports bras; female wrestlers are conscious of pulling both up after tusslingon the mat.

One other adjustment is necessary from parents, who have to learn to accept their daughters' sport of choice.

"This is a surprise to everyone I talk to," said Peter Given, whose daughter, Janis, joined the Ridgefield junior varsity team this year.

Given said it took him about a week to get used to the idea. "She went out for cheerleading and came home and said she joined the wrestling team," he said.

"We were looking for a winter sport," Janis Given explained matter-of-factly.

Given said she and friend Amy Scarlett, a freshman, decided against the cheerleading squad because they knew they could end up being cut. With the wrestling team, they knew that wouldn't happen.

There is another practical reason why Given chose wrestling. "It's a better workout," she said.

To be precise, a grueling, three-hour daily workout.

The girls "work hard, they train hard, they lift (weights) hard," said Silvestrini, the Ridgefield athletic director. "They do the same activity, same sweat, same vigor as anyone else" on the team.

But they face different scrutiny.

First-year wrestler Lauren deWalt said at the beginning of the season the initial reaction from boys on other teams was: "What's going on? This is our sport."

She's pleased to be smashing that stereotype.

"I'm tired, but I'm not complaining," deWalt said. "You feel good about yourself. You're a woman and you're doing a man's sport."

Kevin Vincent has been a high school wrestling referee in Fairfield County for 17 years.

"It doesn't surprise me anymore," he said, to see girls wrestling boys.

"When I wrestled it was never heard of ," Vincent said. "A few years ago you would hear about it in some other part of the state. Now during the course of the season you will see it" more often.

"Some people feel it's a no-win situation for the boys," Vincent said. "If they win, they beat a girl, big deal. And if they lose to a girl, they are embarrassed."

Vincent said he saw a girl defeat a boy who then threw up his hands at the end of a match and quit the team.

The teasing can be merciless, he said.

But it cuts both ways.

JoAnn Mauceri, Diana's mother, has had to fight her own battles off of the mat. "I get very upset when I hear the cat calls and suggestive noises," she said. "They are inappropriate."

In the beginning Mauceri had to request that team meetings not be held in the boys' locker room and to suggest that the girls' locker room, not the bathroom, was an appropriate place for her daughter to change.

On the mat, both boys and girls say they fight harder during battles of the sexes the girls to prove they deserve to be there, and the boys to avoid the embarrassment.

"You try a lot harder because you don't want to lose to a girl," said 15-year-old Darien wrestler Jason Squillace, who pinned Ridgefield's Scarlett in the 103-pound varsity match last week.

Five years ago, when Joe Vano became Darien's head coach, there were two girls on his team. But none of his current male wrestlers were on the team then, so few have experience competing with girls.

"A lot of guys get afraid. I tell them (the girls) put their shoes on the same way you do. You are wrestling a body; put gender out of your mind," Vano said.

Fourteen-year-old Darien wrestler Jesse Davis said he was unfazed by his match against Mauceri, even though it was the first time he had competed against a girl.

"I just thought of her as another wrestler," he said. "She did well."

Ridgefield High School has had women wrestlers since 1995. "I don't consider them girls, I don't consider them guys, I consider them wrestlers," said Dave Jackson, one of the Tigers' two coaches.

Like Vano, Jackson tells his male wrestlers that they shouldn't hold back in practice. "If they go easy on the girls, they are hurting the girls" progress, Jackson said.

Just as Jackson helps any male wrestler overcome weaknesses, he works with females to help them compensate for physical differences.

"Most women are not as strong in the shoulder area as most guys," Jackson said, explaining that their strength is in the hips and back. "We work heavily on hips. We teach them moves to capitalize on that."

And Jackson said he doesn't give the girls any slack. Because of that, some have quit, he said. Others have become tougher. "I want them to prove to themselves day in and day out that they belong in this sport."

Lauren deWalt is proving it.

The first-year junior varsity wrestler has won three of four matches this season, including last week's win against the male wrestler from Darien.

"It doesn't matter if you're a girl," she said, "you can do it."

Contact Kathy-Ann Gobin at (203) 731-3332 or kgobin@newstimes.com.
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Chelynne Pringle spends 2 weeks down under with wrestling program

Berk Brown
Sports Editor 8/24/2000

Chelynne Pringle recently spent two weeks down under trying to get the upper hand on her competition.

Pringle, an eighth-grader at Southwest Junior High and a resident of Hugo, was part of a People to People Sports Ambassadors nation-wide wrestling team which spent two weeks in New Zealand and Australia competing in tournaments.

Pringle, a girl competing against all boys, finished fourth in both tournaments in the 52-54 kilogram weight division.

Along with doing well, Pringle said she’s glad she made the trip half way around the world to compete.

“I thought it would be a different experience,” she said. “I was curious how they would treat Americans. The only bad thing was the plane ride. It was too long.”

Her round trip took 63 hours to make, yet she said, “I would do it again.”

Besides competing in the two tournaments, Pringle and her mother, Lori, were able to take in the sights in both places.

Support from area

Family and friends as well as the Forest Lake Area Athletic Association and Lino Lakes Lionesses helped the pair raise the more than $7,000 needed for the trip.

Her teammates were selected from around the country. Pringle received her invitation to be on the team during the past school year and couldn’t say no to the opportunity to compete on the other side of the world.

For the most part, Pringle said the wrestling is the same over there as it is here.

“The only real difference was that they rang a bell when time was up in the match,” she said. “I couldn’t really hear it because I was listening for a timer, but they just rang this cow bell and it wasn’t very loud.”

The trip was also a reward for an outstanding season for Pringle. She earned the title of national champion and she was also named Outstanding Woman Wrestler age 11-15 at the Minnesota USA Wrestling banquet recently.

Wrestling isn’t something most teenage girls do. Pringle, 13, competes with the Minneapolis Amateur Wrestling Club along with her younger sisters KC Jo and Mandi. KC Jo also earned national champion honors this year and was named the Outstanding Woman Wrestler age 6-10 by Minnesota USA Wrestling.

Chelynne said her coaches at the Minneapolis Amateur Wrestling Club deserve a lot of credit for the success she has had in her five years of wrestling.

Hard work

“The coaches make us work hard and make sure our moves are right,” she said. “We have a whole girls team.”

Most of the people she comes across, Pringle said, are very supportive of her wish to wrestle. She has had a few experiences, however, where the fact that she’s a girls didn’t set well with the boys she was competing against.

She won a tournament this year when her male opponent in the final refused to wrestle her because he said it was against his religion.

“I don't care,” she said of the nay-sayers. “If they don’t want to wrestle me because I’m a girl that’s their problem.”

Pringle said she plans to continue wrestling in school and in her club and has high hopes for the distant future.

A small number of colleges offer women’s wrestling, including such area colleges like the University of Minnesota-Morris.

“I want to go to the Olympics in 2004 (for women’s wrestling) and just keep going,” she said, “and go to a college that has girls wrestling.”