Although wrestling has primarily been recognized as a male-dominant sport, the number of female wrestlers has gradually increased across the nation. Today, girls’ wrestling is an Olympic sport, creating opportunities for more girls to become recognized for their hard work and for more colleges to be motivated to create girls’ teams. For instance, colleges across the nation have girls’ invitational tournaments, where girls compete one on one. Additionally, CHS has a lot of female wrestlers competing this year in the co-ed team, as there are a total of six girls on the team: junior Rylie Figueroa, sophomores Priscilla Robles, Deborah Marron, Andrea Nguyen, Martha Bohon, Karryne Rishton, and freshman Jenny Helm.

All of the six girls are on the CHS varsity team and most of them compete against girls from other schools. However, if there is no opposing female that holds the same weight as them, they compete with a male of their size. Wrestling is a very aggressive sport which team members like Nguyen enjoy very much.

“The first time I learned how to wrestle was in my freshman year. I wanted to do a sport, and my friends encouraged me to do wrestling,” Nguyen said. “It was scary joining the team because it seemed like everyone already knew each other. But then, I got to know the team and realized that everyone was friendly and open to new people.”

Last year, the wrestling team was able to participate in CIF, and most of all the girls were able to attend the tournament. Although there was a small group of girls last year, the season had a successful end.
All of the girls on the team gel together nicely and enjoy having fun competing together. They all strive for one common goal: to advance further into CIF.

“In order to be the best I can be and have fun with my fellow teammates, we all work hard and strive together as a team. What inspires me is the teammates’ work ethics to strive to be like them,” Robles said.

Even though there is still a minority of female wrestlers at CHS, the number of female competitors are slowly increasing every year. Hopefully, there will be a bigger group of girls participating in wrestling and attending CIF next year