WRMS just recently separated the girls and boys wrestlers, giving the girls their own team so they don’t have to wrestle with the boys. WRMS girl wrestlers are making history by being some of the first to have their own team at WRMS. In the 23-24 season, the girls had very few people with about only 50 girls on the team. For the 24-25 season they are looking forward to hopefully having way more people on the team. 8th grader Valaree Pham said, “I am most excited to see a bunch of new people and hopefully have a bigger, better team.”
Before the boys and girls were separated they didn’t wrestle each other, they just practiced together. The girls usually wrestled other girls in their weight class and the boys wrestled other boys in theirs. A girl would only wrestle a boy if no other girl was in their weight class. How the weight classes work is they are separated into groups based on their weight to figure out who they will go against during competitions, and to make the competition more fair. Coach Short mentioned, “Before, boys and girls didn’t feel comfortable wrestling against each other. It has shown in the record number of participants we have had for boys and girls seasons”
Coach Short says that he is very excited for this season and he looks forward to having as many girls as possible on the team this year. “I’m excited! We’re looking to have another successful season and get as many girls out for the team as possible”. Coach Short loves the sport of wrestling, and says he started coaching girls wrestling because he wanted to share his passion for the sport with as many people as he could. He said, “Coaching girls wrestling is fun because it is new and one of the fastest growing sports.” Short’s favorite thing about last season was the relationships the team built with each other and that everyone on the team cared about one another.
Ashlyn Johnson, who was on the team last year as a 7th grader, has been wrestling for about 5 years and was one of the first girls to be on the team. Ashlyn says, “It was pretty fun being one of the first girl wrestlers, and it was a pretty good experience.” Johnson has many things she likes about wrestling, but her favorite was the friendships she made, and learning all the new moves.
8th grade wrestler, Valaree Pham, was also one of the first girl wrestlers. Valaree started wrestling because her sister was a manager for the WRHS girls’ team. This was her first time playing a sport. Pham said that wrestling has helped her a lot with making new friendships, and the way it taught her many new things. Last season Pham made a lot of memories but her favorite was when they played games before meets to warm up. Pham said, “I really liked that one meet when we played mat bump for a warm up before the meet started.”
The girls will hopefully have another successful season this year! The girls started practice on December 16th and the last practice is on February 21st. The first home meet is January 22nd, come show support for the WRMS Girls Wrestling Team.
