You Go Girls!!
By Marty Bitter,Madera Unified School District Athletic Director
MADERA UNIFIED WAS able to add two girls sports for the 2019-2020 school year: wrestling and competition cheer. Girls wrestling is the second fastest growing female sport in California and across the country. The Central Valley has always had a rich tradition of wrestling consistently winning high school state championships in boys wrestling. The community of Madera has also been known across the state for having produced very skilled and tough wrestlers.
Over the last few years there has been a significant increase of girls in our elementary wrestling program. In order to wrestle they had to go up against the boys, that is until last spring. We had enough interest to form a team of all girls from each of the Madera High and Madera South feeder schools so we hosted our first ever girls district championships! It was an awesome event that finalized the move to add girls wrestling to our high school sports options.
January 17th marked the first ever Lady Chukchansi Wrestling Invitational at Madera South High School. The tournament was attended by 22 high schools and over 170 young ladies competed. Madera South, which has 11 wrestlers, took a place on the podium as a team with a 4th place finish! Madera High also had a champion in Madison Avila in the 90lb division and she also took home the Most Valuable Lower Weight Wrestler. Madera South had a champion in Christina Jaen in the 140 lb division. Both of these young ladies have an opportunity to compete for a state Title in early March. Pretty incredible for first year programs!
In the spring, both high schools will also be competing in a new CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) sport of Competition Cheer. It is very different from that of sideline cheer which you would see at a football game. To start, the uniforms look more like volleyball uniforms than cheer uniforms and every athlete has a number.
The competitions are done against individual schools where the two squads face off in front of officials. The teams have the same routine and they compete side by side in front of the game officials. There are quarters and substitutions as you would see in a basketball or volleyball game. I know that our coaches and student athletes are really looking forward to competing in a new format.
Please come out and watch our amazing young ladies give all they have in the sport of wrestling and competitive cheer, I know they would love to see you there.
