Elizabeth Damon enjoys wrestling.

“It’s different from other sports,” said Damon, a Somesville resident who is a senior at Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor. “It’s not like basketball, it’s like survival of the fittest. You’re more on your own, except for the coach on the sidelines, so you have to figure things out on your own.”

As a freshman, Damon was the first female wrestler in the history of MDI High School. But with few female peers from other schools to wrestle against, she opted against active competition as a sophomore and junior.

“I was the team manager the last two years,” said Damon. “I thought I’d try keeping score, because I thought I could learn a lot from watching, and I did.”

Now she’s back on the mat, one of four girls on this year’s MDI team. Whether they actually see action during regular meets remains to be seen, because current plans call for Damon, sophomores Adrienne Carter and Helen Bradshaw, and freshman Sally Swift, to be part of a club team that will compete in freestyle matches against girls from other schools as well as intrasquad exhibitions during regular-season meets.

Damon and her teammates don’t see themselves as trailblazers, but hope interest in schoolgirl wrestling will increase to the point that someday there might be separate boys and girls teams.

“I hope it picks up and more schools get involved, to have more competition,” she said. “What I feel for the last three years is that guys think it’s more of a joke when they wrestle girls, they’re either uncomfortable wrestling girls or think it’s a joke, and they feel like they have to pin the girl as quick as they can. When wrestling other girls, there’s no problems like that, you just go out and compete.”

Women’s freestyle wrestling will make its Olympic debut at the 2004 Games in Athens, with competition scheduled in four weight classes, according to MDI coach Peter Weaver. The U.S. team figures to do well, he said, because it earned seven medals at the most recent world championships, including one gold.

Weaver, who has guided the MDI team through its infancy – this is the Trojans’ third year of varsity competition after one year as a club team – has been active in amateur wrestling at the national level and is a supporter of women’s wrestling through the local Island United Wrestling Club, which was started last summer.

The four MDI schoolgirl wrestlers will compete this winter in conjunction with that club, and hope to be joined once the high school season ends by other girls throughout the region and state interested in freestyle wrestling.

“I want to see the sport grow,” said Weaver. “I have a little girl who’s 5 who really likes it, but right now there’s really nowhere for her to go with it. My goal is to give girls an opportunity.”

This year’s MDI team, which also includes 10 male wrestlers, is slated to host its first home meet of the season Wednesday. The school recently acquired a new mat, which is set up for high school wrestling on one side and freestyle competition on the other side.

The Trojans also are scheduled to host the Penobscot Valley Conference championship meet Saturday, Jan. 24, 2004.

Openers produce milestones

Three top Eastern Maine basketball players wasted no time this season in scoring their 1,000th career points.

Seniors Darius Parker of East Grand of Danforth, Matt Donar of Erskine Academy of South China and Charlie Calligan of Maranacook of Readfield all reached the milestone during their 2003-04 season openers.

Parker, a fourth-year starter for coach Troy Cilley’s Vikings, scored 31 points in East Grand’s 70-60 win at Lee Academy on Saturday night. As has been his style since his freshman year when he helped lead the Vikings to the 2001 Eastern D championship, many of those points came from the free-throw line. Against Lee, Parker made 14 free throws, including nine in the fourth quarter as East Grand outscored the host Pandas 18-7.

Donar, the reigning Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B player of the year, entered Friday’s game against Lincoln Academy needing 41 points to reach 1,000. He scored 42 to join current Eagles coach Tim Bonsant, Tom Maines and Joe Roach as the only Erskine boys players in the 1,000-point club.

Calligan scored his 1,000th in the final two minutes of the Black Bears’ big 72-69 victory over Camden Hills on Friday night. He finished the game with 20 points, as did backcourt mate Matt St. John, whose 3-pointer with two seconds left provided the margin of victory and gave Maranacook an early edge in what appears to be one of the most competitive leagues in the state – with the Black Bears, Camden Hills, Erskine, Mount View of Thorndike and defending state champion Winslow all harboring Eastern Maine title hopes.

Calligan joins Greg Creek, Brian Gerrity and Jeremy Horne as Maranacook schoolboy players to top 1,000 points.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net