| I was born in Las Vegas in March of 1999. I am now a senior in college and my path has been largely shaped by my involvement in wrestling. From the time I was very young I spent my summers in Michigan on my grandmother’s goat farm, where I raised different livestock from rabbits to pigs, and participated in 4H. I also, like many other kids, signed up for sports like: soccer, ice skating, horseback riding, basketball, and Jiu Jitsu. I spent as much time as I could playing sports and being outside. It wasn’t until I was a freshman in high school that I began wrestling. A boy walked up to me and asked me what sport I was involved in I told him Jiu Jitsu, so he told me to try wrestling. From there, I went to a wrestling practice, and I fell in love with its fast pace and challenge. |
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I didn’t have any idea where wrestling would take me, or how much it would change me. I spent my high school years (2013-2017) at Bishop Gorman where I wrestled 113 my freshman and sophomore year, and 120 my junior and senior year. I was blessed to have some teammates who spent extra time helping me improve, by staying after practice to work on technique, and always encouraging me. My experience in high school was far from easy, but I am grateful for my coach, Todd Prace, who always encouraged me to keep trying and to branch out by competing against other girls at USA Wrestling events, like Cadet and Junior Nationals. It was at these events that I saw girls (like Forrest Molinari, Marina Doi, and Regina Doi) from King University wrestling on the big stage, and I felt like I belonged with them. They were gritty, bullies, and technical (all things which I was striving to be); and I knew that King was where I wanted to go. From this time on as a sophomore, I was determined to wrestle at King when I graduated from high school. |
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| I acquired All-American honors throughout my high school endeavors, but it wasn’t until college that I started to really see the fruits of my labor manifested. I did, in fact, go to King University (Bristol, TN), and it’s where I will be graduating from this coming May. Being on the King University Women’s Wrestling team has been one of the biggest honors and challenges of my life. I am pushed to be a little better each day by my coaches, and teammates, in all aspects of life. We focus on growing as a person and not just on the mat, and for that, I am eternally grateful. In my time at King I have earned college All-American status every year, and I have made it to the finals three years at U23 Nationals. This year was the first year that I took home a stop sign at U23 Nationals in Omaha, Nebraska. It felt both sad and wonderful to see my hard work rewarded by this accolade, as I spend most of my time focusing on the process and not on results. |
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| Wrestling has given me the opportunity to see who I am as a person and what I’m made of. It is more than that though, it has brought me into contact with people who have tremendously impacted my life, like my coaches Jason Moorman and Julia Salata, and many of my teammates who I can not only call my friends, but also my family. Wrestling is something that is so interwoven with who I am that it is hard to say what I would be like without it, but I know I will never be able to have the words to express my gratitude for the sport, and the countless blessings that it has brought into my life. |
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