The Nosebleed Section

You may notice in the Enterprise-Record and Mercury-Register that we use the term “prep wrestling” whenever we write about the sport, not “boys wrestling.” The reason why may surprise you, though.

Wrestling is actually a co-ed sport recognized by the California Interscholastic Federation and that means that any female in the state can compete for a state title, a section title or even a spot on the varsity team. I’ve seen a few female wrestlers who have made it on varsity teams though I’ve never seen one compete at the section championships or the state championships.

So it’s sort of a strange position for the young ladies: They have to wrestle and beat the boys if they want to get good experience. And there aren’t many opportunities to wrestle against other girls in tournaments or duals.

But the sport itself is becoming more popular for girls and the CIF is doing a great job of giving young ladies the chance to compete in their own tournaments. The 2008 CIF Girls Wrestling Regional Tournament concluded Saturday in Sacramento and even though there are likely other elite girls’ tournaments to come, it was the last tourney of the season for girls sanctioned by CIF. Emmy Zack, CIF’s Director of Communications, said there may be other tournaments that are called “championships” but those are not done through CIF.

More experience for the girls competing against each other is a great idea. There are a few who can compete with the boys on the varsity level and have success, but there aren’t enough to justify not having girls-only tournaments. Unfortunately the tournaments are spread out all over the state because there still just aren’t enough girls wrestling in enough parts of the state.

Locally we had two girls who prospered at the tournament at Inderkum High. You can see the brackets by visiting this link .

— Holly Thein (Paradise) was second at 138 pounds.
— Jessica Rubio (Gridley) was fifth at 122 pounds.

Congratulations to Thein and Rubio. They’re following in the footsteps of Paradise High grad Amy Havens, who placed fifth at the Body Bar Women’s National Championships in 2005, among other honors.

The Nosebleed Section says thumbs up to girls wrestling tournaments. Seeing more of them would be very nice.