¨I like not being able to feel my muscles after practice-it’s so refreshing to wake up the next day and be like I did that, I get to go do it again.”

For junior wrestler Nevaeh Wicker,  she loves the sensation of not having the feeling of anything left in her body.

From being told that they should start out with a wrestling kids club, to being one of the only girls on the Maize High wrestling team since the 1990’s, Wicker and sophomore Anissa Robinson feel empowered by showing their strength on the mat.

Wicker felt pressure to not wrestle her first years of high school due to it being too physically demanding.

¨I was a girl and it wasn’t gonna be my thing,” Wicker said. ¨Then sophomore year I did not wrestle because well Covid, and I was told the same thing. So I was like there’s really no point. It made me mad, but then I realized that I had next year.¨

Being on an all boys team can be challenging, different coaching efforts, different locker rooms, and just being the opposite sex. The treatment in these teammates eyes are fairly different, some say “the treatment is the exact same” and others say “that the girls get less treatment.¨

¨We get less attention compared to the varsity boys, which I get, they are supposed to win state this year,¨ said Wicker. ¨But we are varsity too, I mean we should get the same amount of attention. I feel like I am unprepared for the upcoming weeks and regionals.

Not only do they feel the different treatment, they also feel the need to dress more of what they think is ¨appropriate¨ to wear around the guys.

¨I mainly wear pants during practice,¨ Robinson said. ¨Not because I feel like they’re gonna do anything inappropriate, I just feel like its more appropriate for the setting.¨

Even though there is just a few downsides to this team, these girls put in their all and put the comments from the guys and coaches in the past, and focus on each other and their main goal; which is to make it to state.

¨They´re wrong,¨ Wicker said. ¨They’ve always been wrong. People that have told me that I haven’t been able to do it my whole life have just made me want to do it more, which then it turns and makes me succeed.¨