A shot at making history before graduating high school sounds pretty cool, right? Just ask sixteen-year-old high school wrestler Jaden Hughes.
She will try to bring home the first-ever Indiana State High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) Women’s Wrestling Championship trophy to Frankton Junior/Senior High School. The IHSAA voted in the spring to sanction women’s wrestling at the high school level, becoming the 46th state to make the move.
This change is a major opportunity for the thousands of female athletes around the state already competing. For Hughes, this is a huge moment – she started grappling in kindergarten and fell in love. “It’s very physical. It keeps you in shape. It’s a great challenge and you have to push yourself mentally for it,” she says.
Her Mom, Candace Vandevender, says Hughes attended a couple of practices in pre-k, decided it wasn’t for her, and then returned a year later. “We knew the wrestling coach,” she says. “I told her, ‘Okay, if you do it this year, you’re not quitting.’”
Not only did Hughes not quit, she excelled…but it wasn’t easy. “I was the only girl for the longest time when I was little,” she says. “As I entered high school, it was still a boy’s tournament – not even a girl’s division. When you go from me being the only girl to 10-15 girls at a tournament, that’s a big jump.”
IHSAA Assistant Commissioner Robert Faulkens says changes to the IHSAA bylaws with respect to participation numbers helped make the change possible. “We went from approximately 83 wrestlers the first time we had a tournament to over a thousand last year,” he says. “That’s over six years. Those numbers will continue to grow once we make it a championship sport. Last year, we ended up with about 1500 girls statewide, although I think that number was closer to 1800 during the season.”
With the first season looming, state officials are working to identify locations for tournaments, sectionals, semi-states, and championships. Faulkens says women’s wrestling will use the same set of rules as men’s wrestling, including 14 different weight classes.
Hughes sees this as a chance to continue her wrestling career at the collegiate level. Whether she leads her team to a championship this winter or not, Hughes will keep applying the life lessons she’s learned. “I love everything about wrestling – it teaches you to always be patient.”
“She’s very responsible,” Vandevender says. “I don’t have to tell her to do her chores or get up for school. She has an older sister and a younger brother, but she’s the only one who wrestles and I can see what she’s learned applied in everyday life.”
Five Wrestling Terms to Learn:
Takedown: A move in which a wrestler brings their opponent to the mat from a standing position to score points and gain a dominant position.
Pin (or Fall): Holding an opponent’s shoulders on the mat for a certain amount of time, usually two seconds, resulting in an immediate win.
Escape: A wrestler on the bottom in a defensive position gets out of their opponent’s control and returns to a neutral position, scoring one point.
Reversal: The wrestler who is being controlled by their opponent turns the situation around and gains control, scoring two points in the process.
Near Fall/Near Pin: When a wrestler almost pins their opponent by holding their shoulders within a certain angle of the mat (typically within 45 degrees) for a specified period, earning additional points
