Two years ago, there officially was a spark, then smoke, at the IHSAA corporate office campfire. The notion that schools would and could create and sustain girls wrestling had long been a subject for conversation. But for every Sarah Hildebrandt or Kayla Miracle, there was a boy ready to squash them, and later a Julianna Ocampo still had to navigate an Al Smith bracket as an undefeated wrestler that wasn’t a top seed because a handful of males in her pod were ranked higher.

Unbalanced IHSGW state tournaments and myriads of ‘prove it’ events later, and the IHSAA has granted girls wrestling its place at the big table. And with it, history was officially made within the Wawasee program Wednesday as its girls program hosted John Glenn in its first dual meet. Fitting one of the true embassadors in Indiana wrestling, Cheryl Merchant, ushered in the night by announcing the historical moment, and one of the state’s most successful programs sent out its girls compliment to get its share of the cake.

John Glenn, which hosted Wawasee last December in what was the first-ever girls only dual match for the two schools, came to Syracuse Wednesday evening short-handed, having just seven wrestlers off the bus. Wawasee, now up to 19 with two new members on roster this week, showed it’s not just happy to be at the table, but the girls came to feast in a very sporting 53-12 win over the Falcons.

“Once the lights went down and the national anthem started playing, it was just another match for me,” stated Wawasee girls wrestling head coach Miguel Rodriguez. “There were some stressful things going on before the match, but that had nothing to do with the girls. They just went out there and did their jobs. I was just glad once the wrestling actually started. Cool to finally see this come together.”

In the books, the first dual match win was a forfeit in favor of Wawasee’s Karlee Clevenger at 100, but Glenn’s Britain Whitmer powered back six points with a first-round pin of Lydia LaBarbera. Kenidi Nine would get the first Wawasee head-to-head mat win, taking a 10-1 lead into the second period of her match against Nora Guisella before ending it with a pin 33 seconds into the frame. Naviya Leon had perhaps the most impressive dual of the night for the Lady Warriors, steamrolling Miah Liehtenbarger with a pin at 36 seconds, followed immediately by a pin for Alex Garcia, who labored a little in the first period of her opening action of the season, but came back to get a pin at 3:20 against Olivia Nifong.

Tiana Senders came back from a tough weekend at the Whitko Invite to score her first career tech fall, totally controlling Maggie Nowak 16-1.

Glenn’s Ava Nelson closed the historic evening with a nine-second pin of Isabelle Brown.

“Naviya did a lot of things we worked on in the wrestling room as far as chain wrestling,” Rodriguez said. “If this move isn’t there, go to your next move. She did really good working through the half, bundle. Take what they give you. If you start forcing things, it can go bad quick against the right person. She just needs to slow down a little, she got a little ahead of herself at the start. Kenidi also did well, she saw the headlock coming a mile away and countered it really well. The girl tried going out of bounds, tried to roll on her, Kenidi countered all of it and got the pin.”

Wawasee collected forfeit wins from Sylvia Dixon, Katie Sigsbee, Nayli Bautista and Cyanna Leon.

The Lady Warriors closed out the evening in the brickyard, signing enough autographs to completely run out of team posters.

Wawasee will return to action Saturday with entry at the Sarah Hildebrandt Invitational at Penn High School.

At Wawasee
Wawasee 53, John Glenn 12

100 – Karlee Clevenger (W) forfeit  6-0
105 – Double forfeit
110 – Double forfeit
115 – Britain Whitmer (JG) pin Lydia LaBarbera 1:33  6-6
120 – Sylvia Dixon (W) forfeit  12-6
125 – Katie Sigsbee (W) forfeit  18-6
130 – Nayli Bautista (W) forfeit  24-6
135 – Kenidi Nine (W) pin Nora Guisella 2:33. 30-6
140 – Cyanna Leon (W) forfeit  36-6
145 – Naviya Leon (W) pin Miah Liehtenbarger :36. 42-6
155 – Alex Garcia (W) pin Olivia Nifong 3:20. 48-6
170 – Double forfeit
190 – Tiana Senders (W) tech fall Maggie Nowak 16-1. 53-6
235 – Ava Nelson (JG) pin Isabelle Brown :09  53-12