The girl’s wrestling team, which combines all of the Cherry Creek School Districts, has students and staff with different opinions.

“It’s a really good sense of community for me and it allows me to be active and always learning new things,” Madison Patterson (11), a student in girls wrestling said.

In an interview for InsideCoWrestling on YouTube featuring Horacio Vialpando, head coach of girls wrestling at Eaglecrest High School was asked why he switched from boys wrestling to girls wrestling. 

“We had an opening happen up over spring when Spark Eater stepped down and being head coach was something I’ve always kind of wanted to look into and then once the girls found out that Coach Sparky was stepping down they really pushed for me to take over the program for them,” Vialpando said.

“Wrestling actually means a lot like, just because it is not a typical girl sport and I am really passionate about it,” Karmella Gordan (9) said, a girls wrestler who has been wrestling for six years.

However, girls wrestling is not easily accessible for girls in the building.

“I think it’s unfair and it’s kind of weird that I have to go to another school to play a sport and that my home school doesn’t provide a sport they should,” Patterson said.

Wrestling has challenged yet provided new opportunities for girls.

“I’ve made a lot of new friends and met new girls. It’s just a really cool experience. It’s a different community,” Patterson said.

There are plenty of added benefits to participating in the program.

“Wrestling has honestly made me so much mentally stronger,  just because it’s such an immensely hard sport, and physically it’s got me in better shape too,” Gordan said.

How is girls wrestling different from boys wrestling?

“Well, physically it is different because women are built differently but it’s also a tighter community. Girls are just nicer than guys are,” Patterson said.

The differences between the two programs are relatable for multiple girls on the team.

“I’ve wrestled both women and men before and honestly, because women and men are built so much differently, and it’s two very different things like they have different moves they’re different, like their comfortability level. Their comfortability level is different,” Gordan said, “and honestly,  just physically, it’s a lot different,  just because there are certain moves you would do on a guy and there are certain moves that you can’t necessarily do on girls because she’s more flexible, or with a guy, you can’t do that move on them because they’re physically more strong, you know.”

The school not having a separate team for girls can be a challenge.

“I feel like it’s kind of degrading at the same time like they put all this into boys wrestling and then we [girls wrestling] can get like a little bit so it’s just and it creates more problems I have to travel to wrestle on the girls wrestling team,” Gordan said.

The girls wrestling team members deal with several differences regarding not being able to have a home team and having had to combine with boys wrestling in the past. Members on the team hope and look forward to changes in the future for the team.