By Claudia Loucks
Geneseo Current

Wrestling isn’t just a “guy sport,” just ask a group of girls at Geneseo High School.

The Girls’ Wrestling Club is underway at GHS, under the direction of Carley Rusk, a 2015 GHS graduate who said she has been raised “in a wrestling family and I have been around it my whole life.”

The idea for a Girls Wrestling Club at GHS began in October of last year when Head Wrestling Coach Jon Murray contacted Rusk about sponsoring a club request from Gwen Burbridge…and she said, “After meeting with Mr. Murray and learning all that this would entail, I began to educate myself about the coaching side of wrestling. I spent last season as a volunteer for the boys’ wrestling coaching staff at GHS to get hands-on experience in preparing myself for the girls’ club.”

“Mr. Murray and all of the boys’ wrestling coaching staff have been absolutely incredible,” Rusk said. “I could not have done anything without their incredible support over the past year and a half.”

When Coach Murray was asked about the Girls’ Wrestling Club at GHS, he explained, “They are a program on their own, which is different from in the past when we would have a girl on the wrestling team occasionally. They have tournaments of their own this season, and also are hosting the girls; sectional which includes 64 teams.”

“For now, they are alongside the boys getting matches wherever they can with whatever girls the other team might have,” he said. “I’m really impressed watching how hard they are working and how much fun they seem to be having with it, and I’m glad to help them however I can. Also, our Booster Club has included them and is glad to help however they can as well.”

GHS Athletic Director Joe Nichols said there have been girls participating in wrestling for some time, “and we feel with the amount of interest at that level, we will see our high school numbers grow as well. It is awesome to see so many ready to commit to the daily grind of a season and test their mental and physical toughness.”

Nichols shared how the program began at GHS and said, “Once the IHSA started a girls’ post season where they would wrestle against other girls we had an idea that we would do this. It started last year with Carley Rusk helping coach the boys’ team and really learning how to run a wrestling program. The Boosters and the boys’ coaching staff have been very involved in getting the girls off the ground as a club this past year.”

When asked about the girls’ wrestling being a club, Nichols explained, “When new sports first get started at the high school, we run them as clubs to establish sustainability. This prevents our school from investing money in something only to have it lose interest as current students graduate. We want to be certain we can sustain for many years after the start-up and distribute our finances responsibly. The current girls’ wrestling club is further ahead of most clubs due to their unique situation of having a similar option for years prior, (girls wrestled on boys’ team), and their start-up costs have already been taken care of by the current wrestling program.”

“We look forward to the girls’ club growing into a full time sport at GHS,” he said.

According to Coach Carley Rusk, there has been “way more girls interested in the wrestling club than I would have originally thought. I am so excited to see the passion for the sport grow.”

“I was shocked the first week of wrestling as I saw the number of wrestlers grow each day,” she said. “We are currently sitting at 15 wrestlers and two managers. I have to give props to all of the girls, we kept telling them to bring their friends and spread the word and they really did! I am still hearing from students who would like to join next year; it’s amazing to see how the club is growing!”

She also spoke with pride of how the Geneseo girls club has done at the two tournaments they have attended and said, “We were competitive at both! It was awesome to see how we compared against girls who had gone to State the year prior.”

At the Munch Pontiac Tournament, Geneseo placed eighth as a team out of 39 teams. Three were also some girls from Geneseo who placed as individuals:

-Gwen Burbidge – fifth in 120 lbs. bracket.

-Phoebe Shoemaker – sixth in 130 lbs. bracket.

-Grace Schilling – fifth in 135 lbs. bracket.

-Gia Ritter – first in the 140 lbs. bracket.

-AJ Juarez – fifth in the 145 lbs. bracket.

Coach Rusk is the daughter of Tom and Melissa Rusk and her Dad, Tom Rusk, was a wrestler in high school and in college, and she said, “My uncles were all wrestlers, one of them even wrestled for Illinois. I can remember being at wrestling tournaments from a very young age for my older brother and cousins. If there was one thing I wasn’t going to let my older brother do, was tell me that I couldn’t do something he could do!”

Her own wrestling journey began when she wrestled in Spider Wrestling in Geneseo. When it came time for her to be in middle school/high school wrestling, the opportunities for her to continue in wrestling started to diminish.

“There were girls’ tournaments every now and then, but I would still have to practice with the boys, so my wrestling journey ended.” Rusk said. “The lack of opportunity is what drove me to help with the club we now have. I didn’t want anyone else’s journey to end due to lack of opportunity.”

She said the biggest goal at the present time is to instill confidence and empower the young women to believe in themselves…”I could not do any of this without the support of my coaching staff, Tom Rusk, Tricia Hull and Maddy Shoemaker.”

In looking to the future, Rusk said, “Our hope is to become a GHS team and build a program as successful as the males. Girls’ wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports across the country and we want to have an established team as it continues to grow.”

GHS GIRLS’ WRESTLING CLUB SCHEDULE:
-Dec. 27 – Tuesday - tournament in Ottawa beginning at 9 a.m.

-Feb. 11-Saturday – Sectional competition at GHS