Samantha Javier Takes on the Wrestling World

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Samantha Javier took 3rd place wrestling at the 112 weight class.

Girls wanting to join wrestling, a male-dominated sport, seems very different. Every once in awhile you see an artist seems as if the only place you ever see that happen is in a news article in a place far from here. Well, Leyden has its very own story. It starts off with a junior girl from West. Her name is Samantha Javier and she has been wrestling since her freshman year. She’s always asked why she does it. She always responds the same thing. “ I decided to join the team because many guys would say I wasn’t tough enough and I would be the only girl on the team. So I decided to join to prove them wrong and to try it” Wrestling isn’t a very well liked sport for girls, but it attracted Sam. She found a passion for wrestling.

Fast Forward to her junior year, Sam is starting at the 113-pound weight class. She’s accomplished something that no other girl has ever done at Leyden. Her first varsity start happened on Tuesday, November 21, 2017. She won due to a forfeit, but her season started off very strong. When asked how it feels like to wrestle at such a high level she answers with a response of a champion.“It’s pressuring to participate in varsity level because all you want to do it fight your hardest and beat your opponent until the last moment. It is even more challenging because I went up a weight class, in which the guys are bigger and stronger. Sometimes being on varsity is encouraging because it lets me train harder and get better. Though it does challenge you mentally, physically and spiritually.”

She participated the whole offseason and preseason and plans on dominating on the mat. She has spent hours and days practicing, whether it be waking up at 5 a.m. to go to a tournament, or coming home late after a meet. The team doesn’t see her as being that one girl wrestler. She is seen as a crucial part of the team because she puts in all the same work everyone else puts in.
Wrestlers endure a lot of physical and mental damage. It is one of the hardest sports to do and she is able to put up with it. That’s what makes her apart of the team. Being a girl in a male-dominated sport has its disadvantage, but she is able to overcome those disadvantages and she competes with the boys in the sport. She brings the pain to them no matter what. Every day she continues to get better and make a difference in a very difficult sport.