Groton girls wrestling set for another stellar season

Over the past couple of years, Groton has set the standard for the nation’s fastest-growing sport: girls wrestling. Last year in particular saw tremendous success with multiple wrestlers winning IAC and sectional titles and qualifying for states. With a bigger roster this season, the Red Hawks are poised to soar to even greater heights.

The start of this season has shown plenty of promise. The Red Hawks opened things up at home with a 10-0 sweep of Marathon and a third-place finish at the Groton Red Hawk Duals. The latter was the first-ever all-girls dual tournament in Section IV history. With so many teams popping up throughout the area—including right here in Tompkins County with Ithaca and Dryden putting together girls wrestling teams for the first time this year—the tournament showcased exactly how much the sport has exploded.

“I’m hoping it leads the way to a lot more of them,” said head coach Jayme Evans. “The whole goal here throughout the entire section is to build the girls teams up. I think a lot of the teams have doubled. Some of them tripled in size. It’s kind of been nice to see the growth. We want to see it a little more. We want to see a little bit more dual meets on everybody’s side in Section IV.”

The Red Hawks are one of those teams that has expanded in size, going from seven wrestlers last year to fielding 13 this year. With a lot of new faces, they’ve been hard at work with a ton of matches already under their belts.

“The development to the new girls is majorly getting them on the mat and getting them that time, getting them experience, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do to the best of our ability,” Evans said. “Most of our new girls have 14, 15 matches already in, which is good.”

A lot of those matches have come against some stiff competition. Over the last few weeks, the Red Hawks have ventured around the state for tournaments featuring the top wrestlers in New York. Despite spending dozens of hours and hundreds of miles on the road, that has not tired out the Red Hawks one bit.

“A lot of these girls aren’t really used to the scheduling,” Evans said. “Getting up at 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m. to go to a tournament is tough to battle, but they’re mentally handling it like they should.”

The Red Hawks’ top wrestler record-wise is actually their youngest wrestler. Eighth-grader Phoebe Bishop sports a 20-4 record in the 107 weight class, two classes higher than the 94 weight class she wrestled at last year. Bishop was a sectional champion then, and she’ll be the favorite to claim a different sectional crown this time around.

“Phoebe is a totally different wrestler than she was last year,” Evans said. “She went up two weight classes, but she’s not skipping a beat. I thought there’d be a little transition period there, but boy, did she prove me wrong.”

Bishop’s sister Carmen has also flourished in a new weight class. After winning the Section IV title and placing third at states at the 126 weight class, the freshman is off to a 13-5 start at the 132 weight class. Speaking of Bishops, cousin Chloe is new to the roster. She too is a freshman wrestling at the 132 weight class, so far posting a 11-8 mark.

Other notable newcomers include a pair of transfers, a rarity in high school as compared to the current college landscape. Dallas Bohling comes over from Spencer-Van Etten. The junior went 7-3 at the 114 weight class before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. Homer transfer and junior Mya Locke has starred at the 126 weight class at 16-4. Her dad Ben also joins the fray as an assistant coach, having previously been the head coach for Homer girls wrestling.

Back to the returning wrestlers, Remi Marshall is off to a stellar start at the 120 weight class at 15-6. 

“Remi has been spectacular this winter,” Evans said. “She’s doing great things. She’s learned a few new moves. She’s doing a little bit more stuff. She’s got a lot more confidence, and that’s the big thing with Remi, I think. She took out a couple state qualifiers already this year, so it’s going to be kind of interesting to see how she falls into the places.”

Other returners include sophomore Zavanna Evans and junior Lacy Batzer, both of whom are competing at the 235 weight class.

The overarching goal for the Red Hawks is an ambitious one: winning sectionals. While they’ll have to take down much larger schools in order to do so, they’ll be more than up for the task come February.

“We want it just as bad as anybody else,” Evans said. “There are some really solid teams like Waverly, Windsor, Chenango Forks. It’s not gonna be an easy task. Section IV is pretty loaded.”