As the lights shone down on the mat at a recent wrestling meet in southern Maine, everything was as it should be. The stands were packed with spectators who watched a wrestler, surrounded by his teammates, getting pumped up for this match. The official was readying the red and green leg bands, and the announcer was calling out the competitors’ names.

Even the female wrestler strapping her headgear on and getting ready to walk out into the circle, which would have drawn strange looks not long ago, seemed completely normal to the spectators surrounding the mat.

But what used to be a rare sight – as recently as 1996 girls were not allowed to wrestle on boys teams ¬– is now becoming almost commonplace as female wrestlers pop up on teams all across the state. Girl athletes at Maine high schools – including Scarborough, which has two girls on its wrestling team, Westbrook and Massabesic – are finding different reasons to hit the mats.

“In eighth grade, my parents told me I had to figure out what sport I wanted to play. I had the choices between swimming, basketball and wrestling,” said Molly O’Connor, a senior at Scarborough High School. “I figured, which one will make my parents mad the most? And I went for wrestling.”

“Unfortunately it backfired and they love it now,” O’Connor added, with a laugh.

And for her Red Storm teammate Kaylee Reny, a junior, wrestling just seemed to fit her personality just perfectly.

“I’m a very aggressive person,” Reny said. “I used to play soccer before this, and I used to get a lot of red cards.”

Sisters following brothers

Last year the second annual Maine High School Girls Wrestling Invitational featured 54 wrestlers from 28 schools competing in 10 weight classes.

The proliferation of female wrestlers owes something to the popularity of the sport, coaches and wrestlers say, as well as to the ages-old inclination to copy older siblings.

Massabesic coach Rick Derosier thinks that a lot of the younger wrestlers coming up, especially on his team, came to the sport through a family connection. Of the four female wrestlers on his team, only one doesn’t have a family member who participated before them.

“Family is a big thing here and I think that’s what it is for a lot of these kids, including the girls,” said Derosier. “You’re going to see more of it because they see older brothers and sisters coming up and wrestling and they want to do it too.”

Mustangs junior Kim Rogers said that was just the case for her.

“I had originally been a cheerleader, but my brother was wrestling in junior high and I watched him and always wanted to try it,” said Rogers.

Westbrook freshman Tori Pabst and Danielle Richards both started for a different reason: to prove they could do what people around them told them they couldn’t.

“Our parents and friends kind of thought it was just a joke and that we wouldn’t really take it serious,” said Pabst.

“People said we couldn’t do it, so we did, just to prove them wrong,” added Richards.

Westbrook coach Ryan Hutchins said that attitude is what impressed him the most when he first approached the pair after their eighth-grade season to ask them to consider wrestling at the high school level.

“I think it said a lot about their character that they’re willing to go into a sport where they know they’ll be the minority,” said Hutchins. “I give them a lot of credit for wanting to do a tough sport,” he adds. “Anyone, guy or girl, who wants to go out for wrestling deserves a lot of credit.”

‘They’re like our big brothers’

On all three teams, Scarborough, Massabesic and Westbrook, both the wrestlers and coaches say that they haven’t had many issues with mixing the females into their teams. They say that their male teammates have been very receptive of them joining up.

“Everyone treats Molly and I like we’re one of the guys,” said Scarborough’s Reny. “We’ll get picked on every once in a while for being girls but that’s fine.”

“If anything they rough us up even more,” teammate O’Connor chimed in. “They’re like our big brothers.”

While their teammates have been quick to accept them as one of their own, some of the girls have seen opposing wrestlers make a joke out of facing them. O’Connor said she’s fine with that though, since it’s all the more fun when she pulls out a win.

“One time a kid was kind of laughing before the match and I ended up putting him on a stretcher at the end,” said O’Connor.

“They’ll see that they’re wrestling a girl and act like it’s not a big deal,” said Rogers as a smile came across her face. “But then when we beat them they walk off the mat with their heads hanging.”

Scarborough coach Phil Hamilton said that the intensity he sees O’Connor and Reny bring to the mat has helped them be accepted by their male teammates.

“Every year that Molly’s wrestled here she’s been everyone’s favorite wrestler,” said Hamilton. “She goes out there and gets about as pumped up and intense as you can to wrestle and I think the other kids really look up to her for that.”

While there still might be a jesting attitude from some wrestlers when they see a female on the other side of the mat, the disposition that once existed in the sport has dropped off significantly.

Hamilton said that there aren’t many problems at the high school level. Hamilton said that in the peewee and middle school levels, he still sees parents and wrestlers who put up a fuss, but that the stigma drops at the varsity level.

“It’s not so much the case anymore especially with them not just competing, but being extremely competitive,” said Hamilton.

The wrestlers say that their parents and fellow students have also been very accepting of the idea of females wrestling.

With the rise in numbers of girl athletes participating in the sport, it seems that all-girl wrestling teams may not be that far away. While it could be a reality in the future, opinions seem to be mixed among the wrestlers. “I think it’d be great, because it would show that there are a lot of girls getting into the sport now,” said Sara Gilbert, a Massabesic freshman.

There are currently a few meets in Maine that showcase only female wrestlers, and Rogers said that she has competed in a few.

“I like it a lot because it gives us a chance to wrestle people who are equal our strength and it’s a change,” said Rogers.

But Amber Libby, a freshman who attends Catherine McAuley, but wrestles with the Mustangs, said she’d prefer that things stay mixed.

“I think it’s good that we get to wrestle guys because a lot of girls can be just as good if they try hard enough,” said Libby.

‘I don’t think it’s really awkward’

Though outsiders might see teenage females and males grappling with one another on the mat as a touchy subject, the wrestlers themselves say that’s not the case for them.

“People give me crap about it all the time, saying that it’s weird or inappropriate,” said Massabesic sophomore Ashlee Ohmon. “But when you’re on the mat it doesn’t even seem different.”

When it comes time to grapple, said Westbrook’s Pabst, the person across the circle is just another opponent.

“I don’t think it’s really awkward because they’re out there to wrestle too,” she said.

Likewise, said Massabesic coach Derosier, the boy wrestlers have to concentrate on something besides the gender of their opponent, or risk losing the match.

“A lot of these girls can handle a lot of the guys,” he said. “So that’s what’s nice about it.”

Scarborough High School wrestlers Kaylee Reny, left, and Molly O’Connor are just two of the female wrestlers who have been competing in Maine this season. Female athletes have been integrated easily into a sport that was once all-male, coaches and wrestlers say.
Staff photo by Brandon McKenney