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By David Gorn--Half Moon Bay Review 1/6/04

Sara Fulp-Allen of El Granada is circling, circling, circling - poised to pin down a new opponent.

Except that this opponent isn't like the hundreds of wrestlers she has pinned to the mat in her young career. This time, the freckle-faced Coastside kid has something new in her sights, something a little harder to pin down.

A spot on the 2004 Olympic team.

The Olympics is nine short months away, and this year marks the first time in the history of the Games that women's wrestling will be an Olympic sport.

The United States will send four women to compete in Athens. In her 105-pound weight class, there will be just one wrestler going to the 2004 Olympic Games. And Sara Fulp-Allen is planning to be one of those four women.

"Nothing's changed. We're on schedule," she said from home Friday. "Everything's the same."

That means the training schedule is on track for the recent graduate of Half Moon Bay High School. She has a good shot at that one wrestling spot in her weight class - she is currently ranked number four in the country.

Here's the timetable: The meet to qualify for the Olympic team is at the start of April, and the Olympic Trials are in May. That means there are just a few months of training before Fulp-Allen gets her Olympic shot.

And the first big women's wrestling event of the year takes place next week - and it's a local event that her father, Lee Allen, is organizing.

It's called the Lady Oaks Women's Invitational wrestling tournament, and it's set for Saturday, Jan. 10 at Menlo College in Atherton.

It's a tournament with Olympic-caliber wrestlers from all over the country, and it might offer a preview of those late spring Olympic Trials.

And it's a tournament that kicks off a flurry of tourneys in which Fulp-Allen will wrestle.

"We've got the Manitoba Open, that's at the end of January. Russia and Japan usually come to that one," Lee Allen said. "There's the Dave Schultz Tournament in Colorado Springs and then there's the College Duals in Forest Grove, Ore."

All of which, along with a few other meets on the way, lead up to the Olympic qualifying tournament, the U.S. National Championships in Las Vegas on April 9-10.

"She should qualify there," Allen said. "There's about a dozen in that weight class who'll qualify. So at this point, we don't plan to go to any other qualifiers.

"She's ranked No. 4 in the country right now, so she just needs to place in the top eight in April," Allen said.

"She should do that."

After that qualifying tournament, the pressure ratchets up for the Olympic Trials, set for May 21-23 in Indianapolis. Three women are ranked ahead of Fulp-Allen: Patricia Miranda, a Stanford grad who won the World Cup and is ranked second in the world; Clarissa Chun, who's currently training in Colorado Springs; and college standout Mary Kelly of Illinois.

Fulp-Allen has never wrestled Miranda or Kelly. She did face Chun, now ranked second in the nation, about two years ago.

"Sara beat her as a junior (in high school)," Allen said.

Allen added that some alternates will also be named to the Olympic team, women who will go to the Games as training partners.

But the first step of the 2004 season is on Jan. 10 in Atherton.

Wrestlers are coming from Missouri Valley, which is the second-ranked women's wrestling program in the country. They're coming from Lassen, Calif., the only other college women's wrestling teams in the state; they're coming from the lone program in Oregon, at Pacific University; they're coming from British Columbia and Illinois and Washington.

"It's a pretty important regional tournament," Allen said. "There will be some real serious wrestling here, some top com-petition. I'm looking forward to it.

"People don't see it as a must-win tournament, it's too early for that - but in some weight classes, it'll be crucial," he said.

"It's always important to win, though. Everybody always wants to win."

Olympics preview?

Next week's wrestling meet at Menlo College in Atherton may be an early glimpse of the Olympic Trials in women's wrestling. Many of the top wrestlers in the country will compete in the event hosted by Sara Fulp-Allen's father, Lee Allen, and Menlo College, where she wrestles and her dad coaches.

This is the second annual Menlo Women's Invitational wrestling tournament.

In Fulp-Allen's weight class, there are just three women in the country ranked ahead of her - one college wrestler and two graduates - and one or two of them may be participating in the upcoming local meet.

When: Saturday, Jan. 10, starting at 9 a.m.

Where: Menlo College, 1000 El Camino Real, Atherton

Contact: (800) 55-MENLO

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Amador High Forms First Girls Wrestling Team

The Independend Calf. 12/03

It’s a small nucleus. However, four girls at Amador Valley High School
will pioneer the school’s first girls wrestling team at a tournament Dec. 13
in San Leandro.

In the past, the rare female athlete who wrestled for Amador was on the
boys team. The sport still doesn’t have much female participation. There is
no league for Amador girls to join in wrestling. However, by going to
tournaments this season, the school is taking the next step toward the
eventual possibility of a league.

Girls wrestling in the Eastbay has come to the point where almost every
weekend there is a girls-only tournament, said coach Kevin Kiyoi, who
teaches math at Amador. Some schools, including San Leandro High
School, have quite a bit of female participation. They are able to form girls
teams for all or most of the 14 weight classes - from 98 to 235 pounds — in
high school wrestling.

Some girls are put off by the notion of wrestling against boys, who
usually are stronger than they are, said Kiyoi. Parents, too, are concerned
that their daughters might be overmatched. Having a girls team will
encourage ore girls to come out for the sport.

Girls are attracted to wrestling for the same reason they are to other
sports, said Kiyoi. The level of competition is appealing. It tests
athletes’ personal drive. “It takes a lot of commitment, confidence,
and willingness to put yourself on the line. There are not 10 other players
on the field with you. Like any other person, there is the desire to bring
out the best in yourself,” he said.

Asked if there is any embarrassment when girls wrestle against boys,
Kiyoi said that sometimes there is. “Some boys fear they might lose to a
girl,” he said.

One girl, junior Stephanie Rhodes, has been wrestling with the boys
team. The policy is that the top athlete in each weight class wrestles
competitively in the matches. “I tell the kids that it’s a competition.
You wrestle, no matter what the gender is,” said Kiyoi.

Kiyoi said he thinks the sport will be growing for high school girls.
He cited the fact that the next Olympics will have women’s wrestling as an
event, for the first time. To get to the Olympics, athletes have to
start in school.

One short-term goal will be competition in a girls tournament at the
end of February in Oakland, sponsored by the North Coast section of the
state’s high school sports association. Kiyoi was hired in the summer, so he
has not had enough time to organize a women’s tournament at Amador for this
year. However, he does plan to have the school play host to one next year.

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Daughter finds success in wrestling
Deseree Cazares unbeaten as senior for S. Grand Prairie

By ERIN LEE GALLEGOS / The Dallas Morning News 12/24/03

The surprise Rosa Barrett got two years ago when her daughter Deseree
Cazares announced she would take up wrestling was two-fold.

"I was cooking when she came home and said to me, 'Mom, I found my
sport,' " Barrett said. "I really didn't know that the sport existed for girls. I
couldn't see my daughter doing anything like that."

Once she saw her daughter wrestle, Barrett was hooked. She hasn't
missed any of her matches this season.

"It's brought me and my mom closer," Cazares said. "She sees how much
I'm accomplishing. She supports me, and I'm glad she's there."

In the unlikeliest of settings, Barrett and Cazares have bonded at the
tournaments.

"We sit together and watch what's going on with the other wrestlers,"
Barrett said. "We hug and talk. I'm lovin' it; this gives us time to be
together."

A senior, Cazares has won 12 of 14 matches by pin and is undefeated.
She began wrestling at South Grand Prairie as a sophomore. She said she
joined to get more involved in school. It was her first time participating in
sports.

"I thought it sounded cool but didn't know how hard it was," Cazares
said. "We lifted weights and ran. At the end, I was going to die. It being my
first sport, I never knew what working out was."

That first week, Cazares came home bruised from head to toe.

"I knew any minute she'd say, 'I give up, I quit,' because of the
pain," Barrett said. "But she's never been a quitter."

Cazares sat out half of her rookie season with a sprained ankle. She
rejoined the team in time to accompany a teammate to the state meet as
a drilling partner.

"I realized in sitting there how much I wanted to be out there,"
Cazares said. "That opened my eyes because I wanted to be as good as the people
at state."

The following season, as a junior, Cazares qualified to compete in the
state meet. Listed at 5-1, the petite wrestler competed in the 119-pound
division. She lost her first match, won the second and lost the third. She
finished the season 35-5.

Cazares said her goal this year is to place at state. She has not added
any new moves to her match strategies. Instead, she has been working to
perfect the basic moves with new coach Clyde Sebastian.

"The good wrestlers really master the basics," Sebastian said. "She's
good with her basic techniques, and that's evidenced by the high number of
pins. Some try to use sophisticated and fancy techniques that don't always
work."

Cazares has won four championships – the 30th annual Carrollyon R.L.
Turner Paul E. Aubrey Christmas Tournament, the Frisco Lady's Classic,
Arlington Martin's Southern Assault and the Arlington High girls tournament. Last
season, Cazares won five championships, including district and region.

"People do refer to me as Deseree the wrestler," she said. "It very
much becomes your identity; I think it's awesome."

Despite her unbeaten record, Cazares still gets banged up, only not as
much as before.

"When she comes back with a new bruise or scrape, I wonder why she does
it," Barrett said. "But I don't know that she would enjoy anything more than
she does wrestling."

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