Washburn Rural has many sports but women’s wrestling has skyrocketed. Sophia Ross has wrestled for three years and joined because it looked fun and the girls were super nice and supportive.

Currently, her favorite shots/moves are a low single and the snake. Her favorite part of her wrestling career is getting to see the team win all together and even just watching her teammates win single matches.

Her least favorite part is when she goes off to college she has to lose 40 pounds since there isn’t a 275 weight class. She has to go down to 190. One of her favorite meets was her freshman year at substate because she was losing against a really hard girl and Damon Parker coached her through her match and she ended up winning.

One of the many girls who supported Sofia was a 2x state champion Dajiah Anderson. She currently wants to go to Fort Hayes to continue her wrestling career in college. Lastly, she has been to many out of high school events such as Topeka Blue Thunder, Purler, Western Colorado camp, and the Linwood Clinic.

Another great wrestler is Julia Malloy and this is her very first time wrestling. She was a manager for the women’s wrestling team and it didn’t feel right not being out there so she came to see what the team was about.

Like Sophia, she loves to go to the tournaments to watch and cheer her teammates on. Conditioning is her least favorite thing about the sport. The person who has pushed Julia the most is Jessie Stonebreaker, an assistant coach for the women’s team.

She does not plan on wrestling in college, but she just wanted to be a part of the team so she joined. Her favorite match was her first one at the Colorado camp. Her match lasted around 13 minutes with another girl who was participating in her first season also. The team cheered her on and was excited to see what she could do. Currently her favorite move/shot is the snake.

Jocelyn Escalante is one of the many amazing wrestlers on the girls wrestling team at Washburn Rural. She started wrestling last year as a freshman. Jocelyn started wrestling because she always had people controlling her life. As the younger sibling she often had people tell her what to do and how to act. When she joined the wrestling team, she finally had something she could control.

Her favorite part of wrestling is the adrenaline rush she gets while on the mat. Her least favorite part of wrestling is how much she has to give into it. Jocelyn’s current favorite move is the double chicken wing which is how she won her first match.

A meet that she will never forget was last year in Atchison. It was her second meet and she still hadn’t won. Before her first meet, she went to one of her coaches and told her that she was going to win. Just as she said, Jocelyn won her first match.

Someone that has pushed her the hardest was Sophia Ross. Sophia was the first one to tell Jocelyn to get up after she lost her live match.

She prefers tournaments over duals. Jocelyn was unable to go to any wrestling camps but she tried to go to Topeka Blue Thunder when she could. She also plans to go to college for wrestling but does not have a college in mind at the moment.