Four New Faces
Written by Callie Harwood, Former Student on Thursday, January 9, 2014
There’s an exciting addition to this year’s SHS wrestling team; four female wrestlers. These girls include Junior Natalie St. Marie, Seniors Kayla Noyes, Courtney Rogers, and Esmeralda Bonilla. From looking at these good-looking and petite girls, you wouldn’t guess that they are tough wrestlers who dedicate countless hours working towards improving their skills for their newfound love of the sport.
Amongst those girls, Esmeralda Bonilla was the first to sign up. Her initial reason was that she “wanted to stay in shape for track and field.” She also participates in cross country and track. Esmeralda was the only girl who didn’t let the fact that no other girls had signed up yet influence her decision to wrestle. Esmeralda said her dad wasn’t too fond of her wrestling at first, but later supported her decision and told her, “if that’s what you want to do, go for it,” she said.
Her favorite thing about wrestling is that “we all get treated the same. However, her least favorite thing is “how busy it makes you.” After the first week, all of the wrestlers were exhausted. “It was tough but I’m not a quitter so I stuck with it and now I enjoy it a lot,” she said. Esmeralda had her first match last Saturday and had to wrestle three boys. “I won one of them, the other two were pretty intense,” she described. Once the girls advance to districts, they will only wrestle girls from there. She doesn’t have a pre-match routine. “I just go out there and wrestle.”
Talking about the uniforms, she giggled. “[They’re] not comfortable, I hate them but oh well,” she said with a smirk. Esmeralda is really enjoying her first year of wrestling so far. Her only regret is that she wished she would’ve wrestled last year as well. “I would’ve improved a lot going into this year.”
Following a family legacy, Natalie St. Marie decided to join the team this year as well. Being a junior, she’s the youngest girl on the team. She’s the only girl on the team with previous wrestling experience. “I wrestled in seventh grade and I did freestyle in elementary school and a little bit here and there,” said Natalie. She’s also dives for the SHS swim and dive team. The wrestling coach, Rob Zabel, was a big factor on why Natalie decided to wrestle this year. “He convinced me to wrestle this year but I grew up with wrestling, all of my brothers wrestled, it’s just kind of been a part of my life since I can remember,” she said.
Natalie expressed how being on a team with mostly boys, some of the guys don’t know how to deal with girl wrestlers. “It’s different than when I was younger because I’m realizing nobody wants girl wrestlers. It’s not a popular or common thing and a lot of people are actually against it,” she said. However, her favorite thing about wrestling is tournaments. “They’re hard, tiring, and last all day but at the same time it’s a lot a fun. It reminds me of when I was little and use to spend my weekends at tournaments for my brothers,” Natalie said. At the last match, there were enough female wrestlers on the other team to have a separate bracket of only females all in her weight class. This is how matches will look once post-season comes. Natalie will proudly continue to carry on her family legacy when it comes to wrestling.
Courtney Rogers wanted to do something different her senior year. To fulfill this goal, she joined the wrestling team along with the other girls and her twin brother Corey Rogers. She also is part of the cross country and track team with Esmeralda. “The first week was tough but it was cool to be like ‘I’m actually doing this’. It’s a hard work out; you’re sweating like no other. I wring my shirt out at the end of practice,” Courtney said about the first week. Her favorite thing about wrestling is “that everyone pushes each other to get better.” However, her least favorite thing is that “some teammates aren’t supportive of girls being on the team.”
At first, when Courtney told her parents she wanted to wrestle, her mom didn’t think she was serious. Then, her twin brother Corey said “Hey I’ll join too!” And now, the twins are both wrestling this year. “I don’t mind being on a team with mostly boys, most of them are really supportive of us,” Courtney said. She really enjoys having other girls on the team with her. “The girls stick together and push each other. I like it.” The panthers’ first tournament was divided into brackets with the eight closest people in your weight class so this explains why three of the girls were in the same bracket. However, they never went up against each other. Kayla Noyes and Natalie St. Marie both tied for fifth while Rogers placed second in one bracket. Esmeralda tied for fifth in her bracket. “All the girls try to pump each other up before our matches,” said Rogers.
Kayla Noyes had similar thoughts as Courtney; she wanted to try new things during her senior year. “I knew other girls were going to do it,” Kayla added. Outside of wrestling, she plays soccer. When Kayla told her parents she was going to wrestle her dad was eager but her mom was nervous. “My dad has wrestled so he was kind of excited but my mom was scared I was going to get hurt,” she said with a laugh.
All girls have one thing in common; they enjoy having other girls to side with this season. “I like it, if there weren’t any girls on the team I wouldn’t have as much fun,” said Kayla. However being on a team with mostly boys, “some of the boys look at you weird and then others want to help,” explained Kayla. As with most sports, there are many positives and negatives. Kayla’s favorite thing about wrestling is “learning new techniques and all the different things you can do,” while her least favorite thing is “conditioning.” Understandably, the first week was pretty tough for Kayla. “I knew it was going to get better and it has,” she said with a smile.
These four girls all have one trait in common, they’re tough as nails. Whether it’s their mutual hate for the uniforms or pumping each other up in the locker room before matches, they’ve stuck together this season. If you’re looking for something to do, come out and support these girls at upcoming matches. They deserve the fans!
