News page
Hutchison nabs 5th in Greco-Roman championships
ADN.COM
(Published April 19, 2001)
Melina Hutchison of Soldotna, who became the first female wrestler to place in an Alaska high school state wrestling meet last fall, placed fifth Saturday in the U.S. Senior Women's National Greco-Roman Championships in Las Vegas.
Hutchison, a senior who placed third for Skyview at 112 pounds in Alaska's fall state championships, pinned Miriam Jenkins of Quantico, Va., in four minutes, 33 seconds in the fifth-place match at 112.25 pounds.
She was one of four Alaskans who placed in a series of national and international meets last week.
----------------------------------------------------
Pictures from nationals in las vegas last weekend are up
on http://www.westcoastathletic.com .....More are coming soon!
------------------------------------------------
Congrtadulations to all the high school girls that competed in the senior nationals last weekend in Las Vegas.Those finishing in the top 8 qualified for senior world team trials in Cincinati on June 22-24.
Taking first was Toccara Montgomery,a senior from Cleveland,Ohio. Toccara defeated two World champions on her way to the championship,and was named tournament mvp.She is the youngest national champ,I believe.
Finishing second was Erin Tomeo,a senior from Mercer,P.A.Erin lost to 3x world team member Tina George in the finals.
Finishing third were Alicia Mena from Minnesota and Lisa Bisers from P.A.
Alicia defeated Dominique Smalley by fall in the finals,and also recieved the Gorrian award for the most falls in the least amount of time.
Lisa defeated Grace Magnusson from Missouri Valley to get third.
Finishing fourth was Erica Dye from West Virginia,in a weight class that featured one of the best female wrestler in the world,Trish Saunders.Erica lost to Trish Saunders in her semi final match,and then lost to the #2 ranked girl in the country for third/fourth.
Finishing fourth as well was Mary Kelley from Illinois,losing to World silver medalist Patricia Miranda in the 3rd/4th finals.
Finishing fifth was Melina Hutchinson from Alaska.
Finishing 8th was Cathilee Albert from Colorado.
Also wrestling and not placing were Devin Kelly from P.A.,Shoni Plageman from Oregon,Melinda Ripley from CA., and Emily Murphee from CA.
I'm sure there were others,but thats all I remember.
Sorry if I spelled any names wrong.Kip.
---------------------------
Add girls division to Kids tournaments
by Dave Storm, Spencer, Iowa
I started a girls wrestling program here in Spencer, Iowa this year. Iowa does not have girls wrestling as a high school sport yet. I did something this year that no one around has done to help promote girls wrestling. If other programs would do this, girls wrestling would take off like a shot in states that do not have girls wrestling as a high school sport.
After starting the girls club, I needed a way to get them to wrestle in competition. When we had our little kids youth tournament, I added a middle school and high school division for girls at this tournament. Without knowing what kind of turn out I would have, I figured that if nobody showed up we weren’t out anything, because the little kids were wrestling any way. I was a little late getting this going, but none the less, we got the flyers out and promoted it with some word of mouth.
I have 20 girls on my 7th-12th team. That day, we had 46 girls show up to wrestle. It was great. Everyone had at least two or three matches, because we went round-robin format.
Now, you have to understand, that this was the first tournament of this type in the state that I know of. I had a lot of people wondering how the turnout would be. I had a lot of naysayers before the girls hit the mat, but once the wrestling started, 90% of the eyes were on the girls at our end of the gym. After it was over, there were countless times that people came up to me and said it was great.
My point is that people should add these girls divisions along with their little kids tournament. We have kids tournaments every weekend everywhere in Iowa. We have some towns that have a girl or two that do wrestle with the boys, but they could also add an all-girls division to their little kids tourney.
There are not that many tournaments for these girls to wrestle in, without having to drive hours to get to them. I think girls wrestling will grow even faster if they could hit the mat more often.
The other positive that came out of this for us is that our boys wrestling club made $460 more than if they hadn’t added the girls division.
Maybe other people are doing this in other states, but it is a helpful idea to get girls more mat time and help build the sport for girls.