Girls wrestlers enter fine-tuning part of season

At the bottom of a stairway, below middle school basketball practice going on in the gym at CAM Middle School in Massena, history is being made.

On a night during the winter break, the SWAT (Southwest Area Team) Valkyries girls wrestling team are getting after it alongside their male counterparts from CAM. On one side of the wrestling room are the boys, on the other side are the girls.

Halfway through the inaugural girls wrestling season in Iowa, programs just like SWAT — which includes participants from Nodaway Valley, CAM, Atlantic, Griswold and Southwest Valley — are finding their way. The same goes for the sport at the state level, as the Iowa High School Athletic Union is overseeing it for the first time.

Not only are there SWAT participants who represent different school districts, they represent different paths to the sport.

CAM junior Mia South and sophomore Lilliana Tafoya are two who had never wrestled before this year.

Southwest Valley sophomore Evy Marlin’s brother Jake Marlin was a four-time state champion wrestler at Creston, and her other brother Trevor wrestled, however she never wrestled until this year. Another example of Marlin’s story is NV sophomore Jazz Christensen, who has an extensive family history in boys wrestling. She was unavailable the day the newspaper visited practice.

NV junior Grace Britten and Atlantic freshman Haley Armstrong are two examples of those who wrestled boys previously before girls wrestling was sanctioned. Another is Southwest Valley senior Ady Lundquist, who is ranked No. 2 in the state at her weight.

South said she joined the team because it “looked like fun,” and it has measured up to those perceptions. She said the techniques needed to be successful have been her biggest hurdles to clear. The number of girls in the practice room who can help her grow has been a benefit. Tafoya’s uncle is Garrett South, who was a state champion for Cumberland and Massena, and won a national championship at Luther College. She loves making her family proud.

Because of her last name, Marlin said everyone expects her to be good. She’s been wrestling since she was a fifth-grader and has been “waiting for [girls wrestling to be sanctioned] for awhile.”

“It’s just more fun wrestling against girls,” Marlin said. “Teamwork [has made our team come together] and having all the girls build a bond together. Our coaches help us make sure we’re getting in new experiences and learning new moves.”

Armstrong noted that making the switch from primarily wrestling boys to wrestling other girls has brought with it plenty of things to learn. Her observation is that boys throw more and girls rely more on technique, which is something the Valkyries have honed in on, especially during the break.

“I’ve definitely gotten better with the other girls in the room,” said Armstrong. “I think that Grace is probably the one in the room who has pushed me the most and made me a lot better.”

At a meet in her school’s gym at the beginning of the season, Britten expressed how much having a girls wrestling team meant to her. So far the experience has been memorable. She is undefeated thus far.

“It’s been a bumpy road because it’s in its first year of being sanctioned,” Britten explained. “As a team, I think we’ve done incredibly well. We’ve pulled ourselves together. Our coaches have done an amazing job of building us as a team.”

There have been numerous logistics that have had to be worked out in the first year of sanctioned girls wrestling, however the Valkyries might be able to say they have an edge because of the experience that head coach Tiffany South brings them.

South grew up a part of a strong boys wrestling family, however she was one of New Mexico’s first female assistant coaches for a high school boys team after she had the experience of coaching one of her son’s youth teams and coached a club team of boys. All these experiences led her to be instrumental in the sanctioning of girls wrestling there in 2019.

She’s now happy to be a pioneer for girls wrestling in her home state, where girls wrestling has blossomed greatly since it began.

“It’s been a big jump for the girls in Iowa. Getting our schedules together, our teams put into teams and figuring out what we’re going to do for state, it’s been a lot to get together. I think, at this point in the season, after Christmas is a fine-tuning point. Each girl has their moves they’re really good at, and I’m not the kind of coach that’s going to tell them one way is the only way. Each girl has their strengths and weaknesses, and we’re trying to fine-tune our strengths right now so that we can get them as far as we can in the [postseason] tournament phase.”

In the next few years, the coach said she would like to see girls have more opportunities to compete as a team in duals. She would also like to see the sport grow at the lower levels so that one day, there’s a more uniform skill level in the high school ranks.

The SWAT team begins the 2023 part of the season 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 7 in tournament action at Logan-Magnolia.