Tracy’s varsity girls’ wrestling team has started its first season ever at Tracy High in glory as it shined at their first tournament, the Novice Tournament. This tournament included Lincoln, Lodi, Tokay and West High School, held on Nov. 28,  allowed these girls to shine as athletes. Out of the six girls on the team, two placed at this meet. Cassidy Denoyer placed first in her weight class and Simon Stewart placed second in her weight class. This experience has excited these girls for the rest of the season.

“My favorite event so far is the tournaments because I get to spend the whole day with my friends and cheer them on as they wrestle as well,” junior Cassidy Denoyer said.

Yet in order to prepare for these tournaments and perform as extraordinarily as they do, a lot of practice and preparation has to be done.

“We do a lot of running and strengthening of our upper body, so in order to do this we lift weights and tumble a lot. There’s just a lot of movement during practices,” senior Stewart said.

“We start with warm-ups then we practice drills on blocking, pinning combinations, and take-downs for the rest of practice. Overall we just pinpoint and perfect our strategies to apply during our matches,” Denoyer said.

These girls are hoping these practices will ultimately help them defeat their biggest rivals this season.

“Our biggest rival would definitely be Tokay because they have about 60 girls on their team They get really nice personalized training, and have won state champions. Yet I believe that if we keep working hard, we’ll be able to improve enough to the point where we can compete on their level,” senior Emily Simons said.

“Our biggest league rival is Tokay.  Our biggest in-town rival is West.  We take pride in doing our best against our rivals.  Our history of being the most successful sport in Tracy High school history compels us to take these types of rivalries seriously,” Jonathan Blackwell, coach, said.”While Tracy High wrestling is the most successful sport in school history, we are happy that girls are officially joining us.  Girls wrestling is the fastest growing sport in American high schools according the NFHS.”

In order to reach these goals the athletes are training harder and stronger than ever.

“I definitely want to improve, and in order to this I will have to put all of my effort into practices by training harder, running faster, and just giving it my all,” Simons said.

“I need to work on my ground work, because I wasn’t able to defeat my opponent in my last meet because I couldn’t bring her down,” Stewart said.

Yet wins and awards are not the only goal of this season.

“Our goals are to make each athlete better than when they started. Not only better on the mat in term of wrestling skills, but in their health, and outlook on life,” Blackwell said.

Although this team is very small there are many distinct advantages rather than having a large team.

“It’s a clear advantage that we have such a small team because we get even more of a personalized type of training as we are able to practice with just a few girls rather than 40 or 60 girls,” Simons said. “We are also able to go at our own pace and make sure we understand exactly how to do the tactics, so we are definitely more prepared for our events. Also, even though we make a small fraction of the team, the boys’ team definitely supports us and respects us for being on the team. We just cooperate, train, and get along like a family.”

Regardless of the short amount of time these girls have been practicing this sport, they have learned many valuable lessons.

“This experience taught me never to give up, even when my back was pinned to the ground or I was stuck in a hard situation. I never gave up and that helps not only in the tournaments, but in life in general,” Denoyer said.

“Even though I have only been on the team for a short period of time, this being my first year, I have already sensed a great deal of unity on the team as we are all constantly cheering each other on, regardless if we are winning or losing,” Simons said.

Regardless of whether these girls place or obtain many awards, they will have made history and changed the course of sports at Tracy High School.

“We have had one to two girls most years, but they have always wrestled with the guys. I think that inhibited others from coming out. This year, we have six which is awesome. We want to grow this team. Some schools in our league have as many as 60 girls wrestling,” Blackwell said.

“There are many scholarship opportunities now since so many colleges are adding girls’ wrestling. It is an awesome opportunity for them. Leagues around us are officially recognizing girls’ wrestling and our league will probably follow our old SJAA league next year in having a recognized league title,” Blackwell said.