BY EARL VAUGHAN JR. | CityView Sports Columnist
Women’s wrestling has been a big deal at Jack Britt High School for a few years, but this year the N.C. High School Athletic Association has pushed the competition to its highest levels ever.
That’s because for the first time female wrestlers will be able to compete for bona fide state titles as women’s wrestling is now an officially sanctioned NCHSAA sport, moving up from previously offering an invitational state tournament.
That’s especially good news for a trio of ladies for the Buccaneers who brought home individual titles for Jack Britt in the school’s recent Boneyard Bash tournament, a staple of the January wrestling schedule for years.
Sumaiya Aamoud at 138 pounds, Sophia Ozanich at 152 and Victoria Shepherd at 185 were all winners one the women’s side of the Bash.
Britt wrestling coach Casey Malloy said women’s wrestling grew gradually at the school with two then four wrestlers, then once the word started to spread among friends, more girls showed up.
“Now that it has its own separate entity, that fuels them to come more,’’ Malloy said. He thinks the physical aspect of the sport is what attracts them as it allows them to be more aggressive than a lot of other women’s sports do.
This is the second year they’ve had a separate Boneyard Bash for the women wrestlers. Malloy sees it as a chance to get them ready for competition they might not normally see. “We pulled teams from South Carolina and Virginia,’’ he said. “It’s more about bringing as much competition to them.’’
Of the Britt trio of women’s wrestlers who won at this year’s bash, Aamoud has had the greatest success at the state level, placing third in the state invitational a year ago.
“She’s on a mission to get her ring,’’ Malloy said. “The other two should have placed but they got a little stage fright.’’
Aamoud made it clear she’s gunning for a championship. “I always believe there’s more you can build off of,’’ she said. “I don’t ever feel fulfilled. I always want more and more for the rest of the girls on the team.’’
She thinks wrestling is a good option for any female athletes looking to try something new and step out of their comfort zone.
“We want to prove to people it’s not just a male sport,’’ she said.
Ozanich took up wrestling because she didn’t have the opportunity to try sports like boxing or football. “It does develop very good discipline,’’ she said. “I think it gives you more leadership values.’’
Although wrestling is hard, she also said it’s rewarding. “We can still become very, very strong and very, very good at anything we put our minds too,’’ she said.
She also likes the fact they are now competing for an official NCHSAA championship. “You can literally say this sanctioned team I was on, I won state for it,’’ she said.
Shepherd borrowed the "Girl Power" mantra from the 1990s British all-female musical group, the Spice Girls, in describing how women feel about wrestling.
“I think ladies like the strong aspect of it,’’ she said. “Like a girl power aspect of it. They kind of want to be a part of that.’’
For Shepherd, wrestling was a personal thing that helped her to grow and learn a lot about herself. She thinks other women can do the same.
She thinks the only direction for women’s wrestling is up. “Getting more people in the [wrestling] room, teaching them,’’ she said. “Kind of making the way for more ladies and better ladies in the future.’’
