MCI’s Woodworth 6th at girls wrestling nationals

As a wrestler on the Maine Central Institute team, Nikki Woodworth doesn’t get a chance to wrestle many girls in high school competition.

That made Woodworth a little nervous headed into last weekend’s U.S. Girls Wrestling Association National Championships in Lake Orion, Mich. Woodworth, a junior at MCI in Pittsfield, figures she’s wrestled four girls in her five years of competitive wrestling.

But Woodworth managed a sixth-place finish in the 126-pound division in her first time at the event, and her finish in the top eight will earn her high school All-America honors, according to Mark Dolloff, who coached her at the national meet.

“I was happy. I was just hoping to place in the top 12,” she said.

Woodworth lost her first match of the tournament, which put her in the losers’ bracket. After a bye in her first match she won three in a row, then dropped her last two, including the match to decide fifth and sixth places. She finished with a 4-3 record.

Woodworth had just wrestled her third match of the day about 30 minutes before meeting up with Amanda Barley of Chatham, Va., who pinned her in two minutes, seven seconds. Barley took fifth, Woodworth was sixth.

“I wasn’t prepared for that match. I wasn’t expecting to wrestle that soon,” Woodworth said. “But she was a tough wrestler, I’ll give her that.”

On Saturday Woodworth opened the tournament with some nerves, and lost her first match to Wendy Casey of Binghamton, N.Y., who eventually took the championship. Casey won in a 12-2 major decision.

“[Woodworth] wrestled real passive. I don’t think she knew what to expect,” Dolloff said. “But she didn’t wrestle like that again. … She’s a tough cookie. She didn’t give up.”

The loss sent Woodworth to the consolations, where she won three straight matches against girls from Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida.

One of those wins was a pin that took five minutes; another ended in a tight 7-6 decision. Despite her inexperience wrestling girls, it turns out that wrestling boys regularly helped Woodworth build up endurance for those long matches.

“[The pin] came on a really lucky move,” Woodworth said. “Either she was going to do it or I was. I was just hanging on for dear life [in the 7-6 decision]. Wrestling guys definitely helps. It helps build strength and endurance. Sometimes it seems like those matches can last forever.”

Woodworth, who plays soccer for MCI in the fall and runs track in the spring, said she only found out about the national championships through another female wrestler, Jen Wormwood, a senior at Oxford Hills in South Paris.

Woodworth said she was approached by Wormwood’s father, John Wormwood, at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championship meet at Oxford Hills in late January, and he told her he thought she was good enough to go to the national meet.

“It’s not for everyone. You have to have a quality about you that you don’t give up, and she showed that quality,” said Dolloff, who spent 12 years coaching at Oxford Hills and is now a youth coach in the South Paris area.

Wormwood, who wrestles in the 137-pound weight class, had already made a name for herself on a national level. She won the national championship last year and was first in the preseason high school rankings. Wormwood went on to defend her title last weekend and will likely attend a Division II college on a wrestling scholarship (there are no Division I schools with varsity women’s wrestling, Dolloff said).

Woodworth figured it was worth the trip to see how she would do and try something new. The national meet is open, so any female wrestler can enter without having to qualify in a meet or have a national ranking. Her mother and a friend accompanied her, and Dolloff coached both girls.

“He kind of adopted me,” Woodworth said. “I don’t think I would have done as well without him.”

It’s likely that Woodworth will get some national attention now, but she’s just satisfied with her high finish and the reception she received from the boys on the MCI wrestling team. Woodworth was touched that teammates like Steve Weeman, an Eastern Maine and state Class B champion at 275, congratulated her.

“I got hugs all around when I came back,” she said. “There’s definitely more respect.”