At the Metro Conference Tournament on January 18, Bellevue   Girls Wrestling placed 5th, earning 146 points. The team also had eight individual medalists.

Bellevue East hosted the tournament, which included 16 competing schools. Omaha Westside won with 207.5 points.

“For the way of setup and tournament running smoothly, you couldn’t ask for better,” head coach Bryan Irsik said. “It’s stressful, but it’s exciting at the same time because we get to allow others who may not get to see a wrestling tournament of that size come, check it out, see it, and be a part of it.”

The wrestlers who placed include sophomore Lily Ross, sophomore Kailyah Evans, freshman Ariana Wells, sophomore Anastasia Jackson, junior Makaela Davis, junior Farrin Thiemann, and sophomore Alyssa Saitta. Saitta, who placed 6th in her weight class, said there were advantages to having the tournament at Bellevue East.

“It felt pretty good because we were at our own school, so I know where I’m at, so I feel a lot more comfortable,” Saitta said.

Bellevue Girls Wrestling, which is a combined team between Bellevue East and West, is fairly new. Girls wrestling became a sanctioned high school sport in Nebraska in 2021, and Bellevue Girls Wrestling had its first season that same year. Irsik has been coaching girls in wrestling since 2018.

“My daughter started getting interested in it [wrestling],” Irsik said, “so I started helping coach her. At that time, I was also coaching at Skylar and we had about eight girls who were interested in wrestling. So they were part of the JV team that I coached, and that’s when I first started experimenting with coaching boys and differentiating my teachings for coaching girls.”

Girls wrestling has certainly grown throughout the years. The National Federation of State High School Associations reported that in 2014, 9,904 girls participated in wrestling nationally. Ten years later, that number is upwards of 64,000.

“When I started my sophomore year I was scared, and starting varsity with a small team was nerve racking, but I wanted to keep learning,” senior Zoe Stricker said. “I was aware that girls wrestling was very new and that almost everyone was just learning the sport.”

Freshman Jameiah Johnson has also been learning during her first high school season. However, she is currently leading the Bellevue Girls Wrestling team by both pin falls and wins.

“The most challenging thing of wrestling, like high school, there was a lot more competition than it was last year,” Johnson said, “but my record’s really good for my first high school year.”

The joy of wrestling is different for everyone. For some, like Saitta, it’s enjoying the company of her team and coaches. For others, like Johnson, it’s reveling in her growth as an athlete. For Irsik, the most rewarding aspect of coaching is watching his team have fun.

“I would say the best experience that I’ve had is helping kids fall in love with the sport,” Irsik said. “Kids sticking through it, questioning it, getting that first win and then the excitement in their eyes that to me is more than state titles.”