Cardinal girls taking it to the mat

Girls’ wrestling is a growing sport across the country with colleges offering women’s wrestling as a scholarship sport. Newton High is joining the trend.

“I didn’t want to be on the sidelines. I wanted in the action,” sophomore Emma Fox said.

Fox said she was a wrestling cheerleader for Newton High’s Cardinals. It wasn’t enough for her so she is among six girls who are on the Cardinal wrestling team for 2019-20.

“It’s more fun,” Fox said.

Junior Grace Brown, sophomores Raven Hoen and Shyanne Valledares and freshmen Kinzie Hardin and Patricia Baker join Fox on the wrestling team. Hoen and Valledares have wrestling experience at the Newton middle school level.

Newton Cardinal head coach Andy Swedenhjelm is excited with the six additions to the wrestling squad. It is the first time in his seven-year coaching helm at Newton that he has had girls on the high school team.

“We’ve had girls wrestling in our middle school program over the years and there are a lot of girls wrestling at our youth club level,” Swedenhjelm said. “It’s a growing sport for the girls.”

Although girls’ wrestling is not a state high school sanctioned sport, they are allowed to wrestle in high school boys’ competition. In 2011, Cedar Falls’ Cassy Herkelman was the first female wrestler to qualify for the Iowa State High School Wrestling Championships in Des Moines. Also that season, Megan Black of Ottumwa qualified in the same weight division, 112 pounds, as Herkelman.

The Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association and others have been pushing for it to be sanctioned. More than 112 girls registered for the inaugural Iowa Girls IWOCA State Tournament in January hosted by Waverly-Shell Rock.

Twenty-nine schools were represented in the tournament and there were 81 total wrestlers in the field. Eight of the 29 schools had more than three wrestlers on their teams.

Colfax-Mingo had five wrestlers competing in the 2019 girls’ state wrestling tournament. The Tigerhawks had a state champion and had a wrestlers finishing third, fourth, fifth and sixth in their respective weight classes.

“I know girls in the wrestling community and I believe it will be good competition with the opposite gender and with the other girls in the state,” Brown said. “It’s my first year and I like it so far. It’s a sport which help me better my body.”

Hoen and Valledares have a couple years of experience on the mat. Fox, Hardin and Baker are in their first seasons of the sport.

“I wrestled my seventh-grade year and half of my eighth-grade season,” Hoen said “I always had fun out on the mat so I decided to go out this year. It’s an enjoyable sport.”

Valledares said this will be her third year in wrestling. She had a foot injury a year ago and couldn’t wrestle.

“Actually, my football coach recommended I take up wrestling,” Valledares said.

Hardin said she had family members who had wrestled. Baker said her father participated in a lot of sports in high school.

“I’m out to keep in shape during the offseason for other sports,” Hardin said.

“I starting doing wrestling this year to keep up the legacy of competing in high school sports,” Baker said.

“A lot of the junior varsity events this season will have girls’ divisions. And as always in our wrestling room, whichever wrestler is best wrestles for us the night of our upcoming match. If one of the girls beats out a guy, they’ll be on our competition roster,” Swedenhjelm said.

“Our coaches association is pushing hard to make girls’ wrestling a sanctioned sport. There are states (Missouri, Kansas) around us who have already done that,” he said. “We have two Iowa colleges who have added women’s wrestling programs.”

Grand View and Waldorf have competitive women’s wrestling programs. Grand View announced in January it’s program will begin in 2019 while Waldorf has had a program since 2010.

William Penn and Iowa Wesleyan joins those two with programs set to begin competing in 2020-21. Grand View and William Penn compete in the NAIA, while Waldorf competes in the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association (WCWA). Iowa Wesleyan has not decided which association it will compete in.

The Newton Six agreed they have goals for themselves going into this season. They have been working during the open mat sessions in the offseason and official practices began on Monday.

“We’re excited to see them out and ready to help them reach their goals. We’re looking forward to the season with the girls among our wrestlers,” Swedenhjelm said.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com