A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2018
SPORTS
Hermiston’s champion
Hermiston’s Alice
Todryk part of the
increasing number
of girls participating
in wrestling
By ALEXIS MANSANAREZ
STAFF WRITER
HERMISTON — Before
Hermiston’s Alice Todryk
and Samantha Dara of
Grants Pass faced off in the
girls 100-pound champion-
ship wrestling match at the
OSAA State Champion-
ships in Portland on Feb. 18,
the two talked, joked and
warmed up together.
They had previously met
on the Oregon prep wres-
tling scene, which Todryk
has now been a part of for
two years, and they quickly
became friends. The pair
wrestled each other just
a month prior in the girls
state qualifying tournament,
where Todryk beat Dara in
the second round by fall in
the first period of their bout.
So, at the state tourna-
ment Dara gave Todryk
somewhat of a warning
before their rematch.
“You’re not going to get
me in a cradle,” Todryk
recalls Dara saying.
But just 3:38 into the
match, Todryk put Dara in a
cradle for a pin to cap of her
junior season as Oregon’s
100-pound state champion.
The match, however, was
an exhibition event over-
seen by the Oregon Wres-
tling Association and not the
OSAA, as girls wrestling
on its own has not yet been
sanctioned by the OSAA.
Despite the formality,
Todryk was the only Bull-
dog who made the trip to
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Hermiston junior Alice Todryk is one of two girls on the school’s wrestling team. On Saturday, at the OSAA State Wrestling
Tournament, she was the only Bulldog to finish first and bring home a state championship. Todryk defeated Samantha Dara of
Grants Pass to win the girls 100-pound exhibition class.
Portland who stood atop the
podium, which was hard to
believe at first.
“Once we got to the
awards podium I was pretty
excited but during the match
I was like, ‘Is this real?,’
Todryk thought at the time.
“It didn’t seem (real), every-
thing was just all happening
at once and it was all kind
of a blur.”
The blur of a bout made
Todryk the second-winnin-
gest female wrestler of any
weight class in the entire
state. Her 22-6 record was
behind Hood River Val-
ley 135-pound junior Elena
Kroll, who finished the sea-
son 36-11.
“I was really happy,”
Todryk said of her champi-
onship season. “Everyone
has kind of been doubting
me this year and not giv-
ing me as much respect as
I need and I think after it’ll
show them how much ded-
ication and time I put into
wrestling.”
Todryk was first intro-
duced to the sport in 2006
at the age of six, when her
father told her that joining
a wrestling program would
be good preparation for a
future career in the military
— something Todryk knew
she wanted to do even at
that young age.
“I wasn’t that good my
first year,” she remem-
bers. “ (I) maybe won one
match my first year and
two my second year. It was
0
more just that it was fun and
there were other girls on the
team when I first started in
Montana so that’s when I
thought, ‘Okay, (girls) wres-
tling is no big deal.’”
It wasn’t until Todryk
moved to Wisconsin in 2008
and started honing her craft
that she felt pushback from
other wrestlers. Once she
started improving, boys on
the team wouldn’t want to
face her in fear of defeat,
she says now with a small
smirk forming.
The pushback has been
one of the most challenging
aspects of the sport.
“The fact that people
don’t believe I can actu-
ally do it and that they don’t
think that girls are actually
any good,” Todryk said is
frustrating. “So, it’s so cool
when I actually show them
and they are like, ‘Wow she
is actually good, she can
actually wrestle.’ ”
Through it all, Todryk
still had fun wrestling the
boys and worked to get
other girls to join her in the
program in the Midwest.
As she improved on the
mat, she began traveling
nationally and internation-
ally, wrestling in Canada
and Sweden. By the time
Todryk moved to the Pacific
Northwest and was gearing
up for high school, she was
looking to become a part of
a well-established program
with a good track record.
That’s something she found
in Hermiston, where she has
been thriving despite facing
those frustrating challenges.
“Once you make a name
for yourself, it’s really cool,
you get to know a lot of peo-
ple,” she said. “I can’t go
anywhere in the country for
a wrestling event and people
don’t know who I am.”
It’s the kind of suc-
cess her six-year-old self
couldn’t fathom, but now
in the best shape she’s ever
been in Todryk is relishing
in the success she is bring-
ing not only to herself but
to a program that will soon
have a sanctioned girls
team.
When Hermiston moves
into the WIAA next year, it
will be joining an organiza-
tion that has permitted girls
events for over a decade.
The sanctioning process
began with the 2003-04 sea-
son with 68 girls competing.
After becoming official in
2007, there were 159 girls
wrestling. Now as of 2017,
more than 1,000 girls take
the mat in the state of Wash-
ington, which is one of only
eight states to sanction girls
wrestling.
Oregon and Georgia
are the two newest state to
join Hawaii (1998) Texas
(1999), California (2011),
Alaska (2014), Tennessee
(2015) and Washington. The
OSAA’s executive board
recently voted to sanction
girls wrestling beginning
with the 2018-19 school
year after seeing a contin-
ued increase in participation
across the state.
The chance to face girls
who have gone through a
pipeline and have had the
experience that Todryk her-
self has gained over the
years excites the 4-foot-10
100-pound wrestler.
See TODRYK, Page A11
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