With years in the making, a new sport emerges here at MHS. After two years as an emerging sport, the first official IHSAA-sanctioned season just began for the girls wrestling team. As the brand new addition to IHSAA sports, the girls embark on a new journey.
“I’m really happy now since it’s actually a sport now and that our things will be counted now and it’s not just like an activity, but an actual sport,” said Senior Joy Cantu, who is ranked No. 1 at 110 pounds.
For the past three seasons, Cantu has been wrestling against both boys and girls, advancing to Semistate with the boys.
“It is good that girls get to compete with girls and not boys just because of physical differences since wrestling is such a physical sport and you don’t have to worry about the physical differences,” she said.
However, she does still face off with the boys at practice.
“I think it is a great thing to practice with boys because it makes you tougher mentally and physically,” Cantu said.
Junior Charisma Lawrence, ranked No. 5 at 140 lbs, is happy the girls are official now.
“I honestly think it’s really cool because I take wrestling very seriously. Outside of school I go to different tournaments and whatnot,” Lawrence said. “So I think it’s nice that our stuff is actually going to count, you know, in a way for colleges to really look at.”
Now as an official sport, the girls are now able to compete in the IHSAA playoffs. This allows the athletes to earn championships.
The team currently has around 20 girls, many of them being new to wrestling.
“We have a lot of new faces coming in and they’re picking up pretty well and I just wanna see how much better they’re going to get during the season. So I’m really excited for that,” Lawrence said.
The girls started off the season strong with a win against Hobart, and won a dual meet against Portage and Michigan City. They also placed second in the Penn invitational. At Penn, individual champions included Joy Cantu at 110 pounds; Elani Alvarez at 125 and Julianne Cantu at 130.
“I felt really confident going into my matches and I feel like I have to be. No other girl in the state trains like me and I think it shows when I wrestle. And I want everyone to see that I am number one in the state for a reason,” Joy Cantu said.
Demonating in these matches is only the start.
“I want to win state and take it to nationals this season. That’s my main goal,” Lawrence said. “I plan on just working hard, making sure that I’m repetitive. Repetition is my favorite thing. I like to do different moves over and over so that I can learn to just slowly perfect them.”
Cantu, who plans to wrestle in college, also has set goals for herself.
“[I want] to get the team running and have a good team. And also my goal is to win State and at least, for our team to place a top five in the State,” Cantu said.
