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Penna State Girls Wrestling Championships

Held at McCaskey High School Feb 14,1999

FINALS
100...Jess Heckman Manheim Central pinned Megan
Hellenman Solanco .38
106...Rachael Gardner Bellefonte pinned Tonda
Nguyen Garden Spot 1.24
112...Sherry Nolan Bellefonte pinned Shevaun
Ambrose Crestwood 2.57
119...Lisa Biser Hampton pinned Rochelle
Hershey Conestoga Valley 2.25
127...Beth Bolish Mahanoy Area tech fall over
Rebecca Hare Shikellamy 19-0 6.00
135...Sissy Lyle, Quigley, pinned Kattie Steffy
Lampeter-Strasburg .43
145...Leigh Miller,Quaker Valley, pinned Wendy
Witmer, Penn Manor, .50
157...Mary Albright,Conestoga Valley, pinned
Stephanie Marpoe, Shippensburg, 1.32
235...Katie Heil,Lampeter-Strasburg pinned
Ashley Arkatin,Solanco, 5.34

CONSOLATIONS
100...Hellenman,Solanco, pinned Emily Geiges
Council Rock 4.20
106...Bethany Fish,Littlestown,pinned Erin
Hibshman,Garden Spot, 5.33
112...Jeana Strahley,Bellefonte, pinned Tiffany
Shaub, Warwick, .43
119...Mandy Saltzer,Crestwood, pinned Alisha
Lose,Bellefonte, .58
127...Shiree Rodeffer,Spotswood,dec Jess
Guarni, Conestoga Valley, 6-4
135...Jessica Shaub,Lampeter-Strasburg pinned
Erin DelBaggio,Warwick, 1.51
145...Catie Shanberger,Red Lion,pinned Lisa
DeRusso,Council Rock, .25
157...Megan Murphy,Solanco, pinned Christen
Ressler,Conestoga Valley, 1.50
235...Erica Reeder,Warwick,pinned Jean Trauger
McCaskey 1.13

SEMIFINALS

100...Heckman,Manheim Twp,pinned Geiges Council
Rock .19
106...Gardner,Bellefonte,pinned Hibshman,Garden
Spot .11.....Nguyen,Garden Spot, pin Fish,
Littlestown 3.54
112...Nolan,Bellefonte,pinned Straley Belfonte
.28...Ambrose,Crestwood,pin Shaub Warwick .29
119...Biser,Hampton,Tech Fall Lose Bellefonte
Hershey,Conestoga Valley,pin Saltzer 3.56
127...Bolish,Mahanoy Area,pinned Rodeffer
potswood, 1.26...Hare,Shikellamy pin Jennifer
Bates, Jersey Shore, 2.31
135...Lyle,Quigley,pin Shaub,Lam-Strasburg .29
Steffy,Lampeter-Strasburg pin DelBaggio 3.21
145...Miller,Quaker Valley,pin DeRusso .43
Witmer,Penn Manor,pin Shanberger,Red Lion 2.26
157...Albright,Conestoga Valley,pin Murphy
Solanco, 1.19...Marpoe,Shippensburg,pinned
Ressler,Conestoga Valley 3.40
235...Arkatin,Solanco,pin Trauger,McCaskey 2.30
Heil,Lampeter-Strasburg,pin Reeder,Warwick 3.53

CONSOLATION SEMIFINALS

106...Hibschman pinned Amanda Gochenour Warwick
112...Shaub dec April Smith (CV) 18-4
127...Guarni pinned Bates 4.29
135...DelBaggio pinBobbi Deskin Red Lion 4.47
Jessica Shaub dec Rebecca Fernback Warwick 8-4
145...Shanberger pin Jen Kauffman Shippensburg
3.05

PRELIMINARIES
106...Nguyen pinned Gochenour .20
112...Straley pinned Smith .45
127...Rodeffer dec Guarni 7-4
135...Shaub dec DEskin 14-8
Steffy pinned Fernback 3.13
145...Miller pinned Kauffman .19

OUTSTANDING WRESTLER--BETH BOLISH
Mahanoy Area

MOST FALLS/LEAST TIME--LEIGH MILLER
Quaker Valley 3 falls 1.52

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Wrestling the gender issues
By Shannon Rose
of The Sentinel Staff

Published in The Orlando Sentinel, Nov 24 1998

Lyman wrestling Coach Marlo Miranda still shakes his head in utter amazement, recalling a day two years ago at Gateway when one of his wrestlers wasn't allowed to take the mat in a junior varsity match.

OK, so the wrestler was Harmony Allen, a sophomore at the time, and the only girl on the Lyman wrestling team. But no objections came from Gateway's coach or Allen's opponent.

"The referee took one look at her and said 'No way, she's not wrestling,"' Miranda said. "He gave us all kinds of excuses."

Lame excuses, according to Miranda. But those days are history.

Girls have not only invaded area high school wrestling, traditionally an exclusively male sport, but they are slowly making it a sport of opportunity and growth for females.

More and more girls are competing, from youth club teams to high school and collegiate programs and on into international competition. It won't be long before women's wrestling makes its way to the Olympics, many coaches predict.

It has caught on so much in Seminole County the district decided to make it a conference championship sport and even adjusted the budget to hire coaches for girls wrestling teams.

"Wrestling is a sport for everyone," said Rick Tribit, Winter Springs' coach and athletic director. "I think it's great girls are getting involved. It's up to the coaches and the districts to give them the opportunities to compete. I'm glad our district is doing that."

Seminole County will play host to four girls' tournaments this year, and Miranda is pushing for a state championship-style event in the near future.

Since the Florida High School Activities Association doesn't keep track of girls competing in high school wrestling, there is no way of knowing just how many girls there are out there. But Miranda is determined to find out.

He sent out letters to every school in the state with a boys wrestling team to find out if they had any girls competing and to see if a girls state invitational could be put together this winter.

Central Florida has several schools with girls wrestling on boys' teams -- Spruce Creek, Merritt Island, Gateway are a few. But no single district has made the commitment of Seminole County.

Lyman and Oviedo each had more than a dozen girls join wrestling this year and both schools added a coach to assist the teams -- Christy Bryce at Lyman and Marge Carver at Oviedo. The two coaches are also learning as they go but said it's worthwhile.

"It gives them an opportunity to do something different," said Bryce, who also coaches slowpitch and fastpitch softball teams at Lyman.

And the girls do exactly the same workouts and moves as the boys. They aren't pampered and protected.

"The girls have to hang with the guys or they are going to get yelled at," Bryce said. "They do really well with it. They take it and give it right back."

In the past, only sprinklings of girls came out for boys' wrestling team, which forced them to usually compete against boys. It created an awkward situation.

Boys weren't too crazy about the idea, either. For them, it was a no-win outcome.

"I think it's cool girls are coming out for wrestling," said Winter Springs junior Brett Weber. "But I don't like the idea of wrestling one. If you beat them, you're considered mean. If you lose, your life is over."

But two-gender wrestling rooms are working out just fine in Seminole County. Most coaches try to avoid practicing a girl with a boy but sometimes an odd number forces such a case. It didn't bother Winter Springs freshman Kristen Iannuzi, who was working on moves with a male practice partner last week.

"Boy or girl, I don't care," said Iannuzzi, one of two girls for the Bears. "I just want to win. I'll wrestle anyone. Once you are on the mat, it's [to the] death."

Despite initial optimism about a strong showing in all Seminole schools, not all of the programs received the same kind of enthusiasm as Oviedo and Lyman. Lake Howell has four girls out. Lake Mary and Seminole don't have any.

Lake Brantley, which had 20 girls show interest last season, couldn't find one to come out this season. Coach Kevin Carpenger did everything he could to get the word out, putting up flyers, making school announcements and holding two meetings.

"No one showed up," Carpenger said. "I think it's a viable activity. It's good conditioning. You pick up some defensive skills. There are opportunities in college now.

"I don't know where they are at Lake Brantley this year. It's really disappointing."

Several reasons are possible. It's still widely considered a boys-only sport. The combination of it involving intimate contact and a physical rawness keeps the average girl from trying it.

It's not for everyone.

"It takes a special person to be a wrestler," said Lyman freshman Lindsay Wickens, who is a cheerleader. "It's exciting and challenging. It's very hard. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and will ever do."

Besides getting over their own fears, girls have to quiet the objections or hesitations of others around them as well. Parents, grandparents and older brothers aren't too crazy about the idea at first.

But as Iannuzzi put it, "I have two older brothers, wrestling was an every day experience growing up." That helped ease her overly protective big brothers' initial worries.

Lyman junior Holly Haritan, who went 15-0 last year and is arguably the best wrestler in the area, still hasn't won over her grandmother.

"I think for girls, it's so important if they even have a slight interest in it they should come out and try it," said Haritan, who wants to wrestle in college. "You'd be so amazed at how much you love it. It's like no other sport. It's not a sport to me anymore. It's a passion."

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We all lose when boys, girls wrestle
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on March 3, 1999.

By Kathleen Parker
Commentary

Call me old-fashioned, please, and then beam me to another planet.

I'm watching a junior-high school wrestling match -- reason enough to long for Venus -- when I begin to hallucinate. This must be one of the long-promised flashbacks caused by my misspent youth. For surely, that's not a girl pinned beneath that pile of boy flesh.

Craning my neck, I blink a few times. Sure enough, it's a girl. Wrestling a boy. What silliness is this? Equality's the name, foolishness the game.

While I was ignoring the sports pages the past few years, girls apparently were developing an interest in wrestling. I can't explain the phenomenon and won't try. I guess wannabe girl wrestlers were always in our midst; now they're out of the tomboy closet onto the mats.

In 1997, according to USA Wrestling, 1,629 girls participated in high-school wrestling, up from 112 in 1990 and 760 in 1994. Female wrestling becomes an Olympic sport at the Sydney Games in 2000. Which is to say, women's wrestling is here to stay.

I'm all for women wrestling. I'm for women doing whatever they want -- just so long as they don't do it to or with my son without his permission. The problem with girl wrestling is that they don't have enough same-gender counterparts; ergo, they have to wrestle boys.

Can girls compete with boys? You bet. Can girls beat boys? Sometimes. Do boys get to say, "I'd rather not?" Not if they want to be on the team.

In the match I observed, the girl did win. The boy was smaller, weaker and forever ruined among his peers. The other boys looked at him with disgust: How could you let a girl beat you?

Usually, the results are otherwise, however. Boys typically are stronger, and often the girls get hurt. If the boy wins, he's a bully; if he doesn't win, he's a loser in every sense of the word.

Everyone by now understands the need to allow girls equal participation in sports. Since 1972, Title IX has made it illegal to do otherwise. We who grew up when the only outlet for female athletes was cheerleading can only applaud the respect (and money) now given to women's sports.

But pitting boys against girls in contact sports is an error in judgment that shouldn't need explaining. In our scrambling to manufacture laws of gender-proportionality, we've forgotten the more compelling laws of the jungle.

Instinctively, I know that teenage boys and girls grappling with their evolving bodies and the hormonal challenges of puberty don't need to be up-close-and-personal in the sweaty arena of a wrestling match. Beyond the obvious, what are we teaching our young people about the opposite sex?

In my youth -- right after we finished work on the wheel -- our parents taught boys not to hit or wrestle with girls because they might hurt them. Boys learned to respect the physical limitations of their sisters; they learned, too, that physical relationships between men and women were special, not down-and-dirty like boys' sandlot antics.

What if, instead, they had been taught that girls were the same as they? What if they learned that girls just offered another sweaty body to paw around? The answer may lie in the increase in date rapes and the growing rate of violence against women.

Men my age learned quickly not to open doors for "ladies" after they'd been verbally slapped a few times. The next generation may never recall a time when relationships between men and women were special.

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2 female wrestlers bound for national tournament

Story last updated at 12:34 p.m. on Tuesday, March 24, 1998

By Lee Goddard
Sports writer

After spending most of their careers wrestling against boys, two girls will have the opportunity to prove their wrestling ability in a girls-only national tournament.

Canisha Moses of Ribault and Deedee Edwards of Stanton are headed to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the first All-Girls National Wrestling Championship, which takes place Saturday and Sunday.

''I've always been tomboyish,'' said Edwards, a senior who will wrestle at the tournament in the 129- or 135-pound weight class. ''My next-door neighbor wrestled at Englewood and she got me into it. I found that girls were allowed to compete on the wrestling teams.''

Her first experience with wrestling could have been a negative. Edwards ran into a boy that was anxious about the possibility of losing to a girl.

''He was trying so hard to beat me,'' Edwards said. ''He almost broke my neck. I got rolled over on top of my head and the people in the crowd said it looked like my neck was going to get broken.''

To practice for the trip, Edwards has been wrestling Moses and some of the boys at Ribault.

''Canisha's pretty good,'' Edwards said. ''But I'm about 20 pounds heavier. I need to practice with boys that are closer to my weight.''

Moses, who also cheers, swims and participates in the ROTC, had a rough season. After two winning seasons, the senior had a losing record due in large part to a dislocated knee.

''I surprise people because I don't look like a wrestler,'' said Moses, who will wrestle in the 117-pound weight class in Michigan. ''But I have a lot of support and many people are proud of the accomplishments I have made as a girl wrestler.''

Moses, whose brother Cornell wrestled for the Trojans last year, has found wrestling to be an enjoyable challenge.

''I don't wrestle to prove a point,'' Moses said. ''I do it because it's interesting.''

Edwards and Moses are eager to claim national titles. Edwards is determined to bring something home.

''I am determined to prove that there's no way I am going to Michigan and not bringing anything home,'' she said. ''I want to let the girls that are interested know that they can accomplish this and also bring pride to my team. If I don't win, I will come real close.''

RIBAULT REPRESENTED - The Trojans had three representatives named to the Class 4A All-State team last week. Forward Mike Townsend made the second team, while guard William Hines claimed third-team honors. Trojan girls standout Shundesha Youmans, a forward, also made second team.

ALL-STATE FLASHES - Hilliard also was represented, with two people on the Class 2A All-State squad. Marlayna Walker, a senior forward, claimed first-team honors on the Class 2A All-State team. Benny Waldo, a 6-7 senior, represented the boys by being named to the second team.