Mehlville Tournament offers major showcase for girls wrestling

[TomM]

Mehlville Tournament offers major showcase for girls wrestling

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/high-school/wrestling/mehlville-tournament-offers-major-showcase-for-girls-wrestling/article_4f0181f2-0596-11e9-9f86-c328c307fb16.html

MEHLVILLE • Jaycee Foeller's dad said 'no' at first. Faith Cole's dad actively encouraged his little girl to take up the sport.

Both young women found themselves at the same place Friday — the last Friday night before Christmas, no less — dominating the sport they love: wrestling.

Foeller, a sophomore from De Soto, easily pinned her first two opponents at the inaugural Mehlville Wrestling Tournament to run her season record to 11-0. Her dad's fully on board now.

"He loves the fact that I'm in it now," said Foeller, who competed in the 160-pound weight class Friday. "He still gets stressed sometimes. He wants to see me do what I do and be good at it, but at the same time, he doesn't want me to, like, get hurt."

Cole, a Lafayette freshman, thrashed her first foe by a 17-2 technical fall, then quickly pinned her second to move to 4-0 (against girls) as matches continued through the night.

"My dad wanted me to try it because he wrestled in high school," said Cole, who competed at 110 pounds. "I clicked with it. I might have played soccer if we didn't have this, but I don't think I could get anywhere playing that. With wrestling, I can get somewhere."

The sport itself, with the girls part of it now fully sanctioned by the Missouri State High School Activities Association, is also getting somewhere. It's on an upswing that took the Mehlville Tournament organizers a little by surprise.

They couldn't be more delighted about it.

"We turned away at least 10 teams who wanted to be here," Mehlville wrestling coach and wrestling tournament organizer Rob Gion Jr. said. "We have 24 or 25 teams who are competing tonight, and we had another 10 who wanted to be here."

The parking lot outside the spacious high school had the look of one hosting a state quarterfinal basketball playoff game. Gion Jr. and his team of organizers had to open up a second gym in the school and begin the matches three hours earlier than planned to accommodate all the wrestlers and teams.

"We didn't know what kind of turnout we'd get," Gion Jr. said. "Early on we were pretty much saying yes to everybody, expecting teams to have two or three girls. We've got teams here with a full 10, 12 ladies competing."

Though girls wrestling has only recently been sanctioned, many of the athletes participating at Mehlville were as seasoned and dangerous on the mat as their male counterparts, and take the sport just as seriously.

Foeller won the 180-pound national championship of the Cadet Division at the U.S. Marine Corps Cadet and Junior Nationals in Fargo, ND, this past summer, and took second place in the Junior division.

That's a long way from her earliest days in the sport, when Foeller decided to try wrestling against her father's wishes, then got her "butt kicked" at the first tournament she participated in.

"I just laughed," Foeller said, remembering the experience from her eighth-grade year. "I liked what I was doing, plus I had coaches who were supporting me. They wanted me to get better, and I wanted to get better."

Cole intends to compete at Fargo this coming summer now that she's going to be old enough. Last summer, the Lafayette freshman took fifth place at the Dallas Body Bar Tournament, and went 6-0 individually at the Disney Duals in Orlando, helping her club team earn a third-place trophy.

"I'm always traveling to tournaments in the summer," Cole said. "It's what I do. It's my fun."

Both Foeller and Cole were happy to see such a nice turnout, both in competitors and spectators.

"I like the fact that there are more girls coming out for this sport," Foeller said. "Seeing the amount of girls here now is really eye opening, because we didn't think so many girls would come out for this. But wow, people were interested in this and wanted to do it."

John Brown is Foeller's high school coach. He's been the boys (and now girls) wrestling coach at De Soto for 21 years. He said it's about time girls started getting their own major regular-season tournaments. He's been around the mats enough years to know good talent when he sees it, and said the girls are already catching up with the boys.

In fact, the girls are just better at some things.

"I think the girls have better hips, center of gravity, things like that," said Brown, noting they control their crucial hip position more naturally. "And they got some moves they do that I can't really teach a boy; it's just different."

Anyone who'd say the De Soto coach is just schmoozing up the girl wrestlers should perhaps try wrestling one. The majority of the girls who competed at Mehlville have had to wrestle boys most of their time in the sport.

Cole has won eight of her 10 matches this season against boys. Again, she's a freshman.

"These tournaments are really neat to watch," Brown said. "The girls really bring the competitiveness.

Which is exactly the point for starting a major girls tournament at Mehlville, Gion Jr said; to showcase the metro area's top female wrestlers and get them more action. Many of the girls participating Friday got to wrestle five matches.

"A lot of girls tournaments have been run alongside with the guys, which is great, but we set this up from the beginning so that these young ladies would really have an opportunity to show off," Gion Jr said. "This was nothing against the guys. We just wanted the young women to get the recognition that was due them. They work really hard and it's a hard sport."

Foeller, who is a cheerleader at DeSoto during football season, said she sometimes wonders what took so long. She always knew she needed a more competitive outlet and is happy to have found it on the mat, where girls work just as hard as boys do to win.

"Girls are competitive," Foeller said. "Very. Sometimes they're more competitive than the guys."