News Page
12/20/1999
----------------------------------
Wrestlers keep trucking in tournament despite bad bus
By Rick Mauch
Special to the Star-Telegram
December 17,1999
The Arlington High boys and girls wrestling teams each finished third at the Bryan Invitational on Saturday, but competing was nothing compared to what they went through just to get to the event.
The teams left Arlington at 4 a.m. Saturday. An hour later, they were sitting on the side of the road with a broken-down bus wondering if they'd even make it to Bryan.
They finally made it to the tournament shortly after 9 a.m. They had to weigh in and begin competing at 10 a.m.
"We basically put our stuff on and wrestled," Arlington coach Henry Harmoney said. "I was really concerned that they were just going to be too tired."
The Colts boys missed finishing second by a few points. Three wrestlers won their respective divisions and nine placed. Charles Michael won at 135 pounds, Josh Jaffe at 145 and J.J. Holmes at 171. Marco Talamantez was second at 130, and Eli Fambro was second at 160.
For the Arlington girls, Geanie Jaffe took first place at 165 pounds and Nikki Ray was second at 119 pounds.
Sam Houston won the girls meet as eight Texans placed. Three Texans won their weight classes and three took second.
At 128 pounds, Brenda Malott won, as did Laquienta Crenshaw at 148 and Brandi Killingsworth at 185. Cathy Cotter was second at 110. Maria Garza was runner-up at 165, and Racquel Reyes was second at 148.
Bowie also competed in the tournament. Jessica Lopez won among the girls at 119, while Andy Sensibaugh was first in boys at 125. Also, Cary Phillips was second at boys 152, as were Forrest Burton at 103 and Kyle Brattin at 112.
-----------------------------
Girls and boys together on the mat?
Sutera wrestles against all-male tradition
By RICHARD A. D'ERRICO
Staff Writer
Eight years ago, Tracy Sutera's daughter asked him if she could be a wrestler.
Her request didn't faze him a bit. Because of her father's role as a wrestling coach with the Minisink Valley Youth Club, Gillian Sutera had been around the sport all her life.
"I never felt I could tell her she could not wrestle. I didn't ever want to tell her she couldn't do something because she's a girl."
Gillian began wrestling at 5 and continued until she was 12, when it became too difficult to balance gymnastics and wrestling practices, as well as volleyball and track.
But looking back, the 13-year-old sees nothing unusual about her request – or the fact that she won 80 percent of her matches, almost all against boys.
"It was normal to me," she said, adding that she used to pin her younger brother in family matches.
She had to wrestle boys in most cases because there were not enough girls to compete against. But that is changing.
Alberto Nieves, Ellenville High School's wrestling coach and former Olympian alternate in 1992, coached the first girl wrestler to beat a boy in Section 9 high school competition.
Last year, Cassie Crisano beat a male member of the John Jay High School team when she was a junior, he said.
But Nieves is not thrilled with the idea of boys and girls together on the mat. He talks about the psychological problems a boy faces when losing to a girl.
"I try to put myself in the guy's shoes," Nieves said. "He had to not only deal with his teammates, but the rest of the school and getting teased. But I guess that's part of growing up."
Nieves said Crisano, who didn't wrestle as a senior, didn't get any special treatment from him or her teammates.
"You could see guys who went against her at one time were a little tentative at first," he said, "but after a while they realized they're out there, they snap out of it. ... They want to get the match over with."
Crisano didn't wrestle boys exclusively. She faced girls from Liberty and Rondout Valley, Nieves said. She placed second in the national girls championship in 1997.
Nieves said women's wrestling will be added to an upcoming Olympics, and eventually it will "trickle down" to colleges and high schools. He said there are few colleges that have women's teams.
Sutera said there's no reason men and women athletes should be divided by gender.
"If it were up to me, every single sport would be anybody against anybody," he said. "There wouldn't be any lines drawn. Football, tennis, it would all be one pool. That's where you'd find who the best athletes are."
-----------------------------------
Hancock wrestles with its program
By Shannon Conner
Of The Post-Dispatch
December 16,1999
Hancock Coach: Jerry Moser
Seniors:
Danny Franklin, heavyweight
Liberado Gil, 152
Paul Taylor, 145
Cory O'Hair, 171
The problems for coach Jerry Moser and his Hancock wrestling squad are the same every season: few athletes and a losing record.
This season, Moser has two more issues to deal with: the safety of 130-pound wrestler Hannah Werner and training with his athletes.
Moser, a 47-year-old science teacher at Hancock, has coached the wrestling team for eight years in two separate stints. His first experience was from 1979-1983. The Tigers dropped their wrestling program in the early '80s, but started it again in 1995. Moser, who graduated from Hancock in 1970, returned as coach.
Because Hancock has always had a struggling program, the athletes don't have others to practice with. Moser often ends up on the mats.
And this season his partner has regularly been heavyweight senior Danny Franklin. "I've been working with Danny," Moser said. "And I'm not big enough or young enough to do it."
The work is paying off though. Franklin has one of the top winning percentages in the area this season with a 9-2 record.
Franklin and senior 152-pounder Liberado Gil were two of the four returning wrestlers with experience this season. They were also the only two to have qualified for the state tournament last year. The other seniors are Paul Taylor, who wrestles at 145, and Cory O'Hair at 171.
"That's why the meets are so important to them, because it's their only real time to practice," Moser said. "They have people to wrestle against in a meet."
So Moser concentrates on practicing and individual wins rather than the team's cumulative losses, including an 81-0 rout by Affton on Monday.
One solo win was posted by Werner, who was one of three females who went out for the team this season. She wrestles at 130 and Moser said that while he is impressed with her tenacity - the other two females have left the team - he also worries about her safety.
"Every year is a rebuilding year for us," Moser said. "So we include everyone. We never have a full squad."
O'Hair just returned to the squad. He suffered a neck injury two weeks ago when he was taken down in a match. He landed on his head and has not wrestled since the whiplash injury.
"We're not even sure if he's 100 percent," Moser said. "But he returned this week and we can use him right away. He was checked out and says he's doing great."
Hancock will host Park Hills on Jan 6.
-------------------------
Two schools start the building process and will compare notes in a quad meet
By Jeremy Rutherford
Of The Post-Dispatch
December 16,1999
* New coaches say it will take years to develop the wrestling programs at Herculaneum and Hillsboro.
Brent Mueller and Dave Pierce are wrestling coaches trying to put their teams on the map in Jefferson County. But first, the two have to find out whom to put on the mat.
Mueller and Pierce are each in their first seasons at Herculaneum and Hillsboro, respectively.
In a sport not all that popular in the county (outside of Fox and Seckman), the two coaches are battling to fill the 14 weight classes. Without a participant in each class, it makes it tough for a team to do well in a tournament's overall standings.
"We still have three openings," Mueller said. "We hope to have them filled by the end of the year. But we have a lot of freshmen and they are just not ready for the varsity yet."
Mueller and Pierce are hoping that with each tournament, they will have a better grip on their grapplers.
On Friday, they will get a look at each other's teams when Hillsboro hosts its annual quad-meet at 5 p.m. The meet will bring in Herculaneum, New Madrid, Clayton and Hancock.
Like Mueller, Pierce is hoping that individual victories will bring excitement and dedication.
"We have a lot of freshmen and sophomores," Pierce said. "I'm new, they're new ... it's going to take a couple of years before we're where we want to be. But I'm very impressed."
Mueller is a former assistant coach at Pattonville and Francis Howell, where he helped coach a couple of state champions. Ethan Kile of Francis Howell won the Missouri Class 4A title last year in the 103-pound division and was undefeated.
"I'd like to think that I can bring that (success) here," Mueller said. "To be honest, I think it's going to take seven years to build a solid program. You have to start them out in grade school, so that when they get here as freshmen, they are ready to wrestle for four straight years.
"You look at Fox and Seckman with the feeder programs that they have and you can understand why they're so successful," he added. "I think you will see the rest of Jefferson County play off those schools and develop their programs like them."
Herculaneum is returning two grapplers who qualified for state last year: junior Kevin Stamps (112-pound class) and senior Dustin Schaeffer (215). Junior Corey Williams, a transfer from Windsor at 119, is also a past qualifier.
Hillsboro has sophomores Jeremy Ruhl (103) and Mike Wattle (189), who each placed first at recent quad-meet at Eureka.
Sophomore Darren Romriell is Hillsboro's top qualifier from last year, but he suffered a broken fibula at the Eureka meet and is out until mid-January. His replacement in the 125-pound division is junior Jenna Heckethorn, one of three female wrestlers at Hillsboro.
---------------------------------