Sierra Blasone is the only female wrestler on Sparta High School’s male wrestling team.
BY ALEXIS TARRAZI – Straus News
SPARTA — Women and wrestling? Not exactly what comes to mind when thinking of the sport. Yet females across the country are making headlines.
Danielle Coughlin, a teen girl in Massachusetts, became the first female wrestler to win the state championship last week. A mixed martial arts competition with nuances of wrestling — the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) — also brought women to the limelight when it held its first female match on Saturday.
Making headlines in Sparta, Sierra “Sissy” Blasone, a sophomore at Sparta High School, is the only female wrestler on the varsity team.
This is the third and final installment in a series of articles that featured women playing in men’s sports.
“Wrestling on a boys’ team started for me when I was about six years old,” said Sierra, 16. “I started because when I was little I loved to watch my brother wrestle, I went to every practice. One day a little boy about my weight and size did not have a partner, my dad knowing I am a tough cookie through me in, ever since that day I practiced with them and joined the team.”
Sierra Blasone at 7 years old.
Growing up Sierra was always into sports, competing in wrestling, softball and football. When she hit high school she narrowed her athletic focus to wrestling only.
“I was more of a tomboy than a girly girl when I was little,” Sierra said.
Eric, Sierra’s father, noted that her football team mates outgrew her, making the sport a bit tougher — while sticking with wrestling Sierra could still compete with the boys in her own weight class.
Last year she placed second in the girls’ state championship; and this year she took first — where she became New Jersey’s state champion in her weight class of 103 pounds. In the beginning of March, she is going to Michigan to compete in the Girls’ Folkstyle tournament and then to Oklahoma for the National Girls’ Wrestling at the end of March, where she’s hoping to take first place and get noticed by colleges.
A very physical and hands-on sport, Eric did have some reservations about his daughter wrestling after she matured.
“I mean I don’t like you know the way boys — they have no choice but to touch her, you know, the way they do,” said Eric. “There is nothing, really, I can do. But whenever they are out on the mat with her they are more afraid to lose. Because it is a lose, lose for a boy. So they don’t go out there thinking I got the girl. They go out there and try to win.”
Competing with the boys does not faze Sierra at all, in fact she feels better out on the mat.
“I like being in a physical sport because it helps me, not by just being a better wrestler but being a better person, it relaxes me,” Sierra said. “I’m a competitive person maybe to a fault but it’s what I love. I love to train, I love to compete, I love to know I can do something many girls can’t, and succeed. I work just as hard as the boys maybe harder some times because I have to learn freestyle for college on the side. I never felt weird being on a boy’s team, I don’t think my teammates have either. My teammates except that I’m a girl doing a guys sport.”
Since the boys bring more physical strength, Sierra trains twice as hard. She practices with the team every day after school, then after practice she has a trainer wrestle with her during weekdays and weekends.
“There are weaknesses to the sport, and by that I mean confidence,” Sierra said. “Not everyone believes I can make it or beat boys so they try and bring me down and judge me but then I see my dad standing on the edge of the mat cheering me on every time, and that’s what makes me keep going. Girls physically don’t have as much upper body strength as boys do so that doesn’t help in my advantage either. Consequences are I can get hurt or injured but its wrestling I know it can happen, it won’t stop me.”
Sharing her positive attitude with other girls, Sierra coaches elementary and middle school age students.
“When they are in elementary school, they start to give up on the sport and think they will not be able to make it middle school,”Sierra said. “So I talk to so many little girls and I tell them even though they like the sport, they will have to train more but its worth it because you can have so much fun and have the feeling of beating boys. I keep them going and they do it.”
Sierra’s goal is to earn a college scholarship in wrestling to keep performing her sport beyond high school. Overall, Sierra says she has gotten a lot of support to help fuel her passion for wrestling.
“I want to thank my Dad for being my biggest influence, if it wasn’t for him I would not be competing today,” Sierra said. “And my coaches and team for not treating me like a girl.”
– See more at: http://spartaindependent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130227/NEWS01/130229960/Girl-wrestler-competes-with-boys#sthash.u9v6upfh.dpuf
Alexis Tarrazi 