It’s A New Day Oregon Wrestler Sees Nothing Special About Being First Girl In Championships

The first girl to wrestle at the state high school championship had to hit the mat fighting a bout of the flu.

Cheryl New, a 16-year-old, 106-pound sophomore from Bonanza, ignored a ringing headache and churning stomach to make her debut at Memorial Coliseum, but was eliminated after losing two matches.

New, 21-15 going into the tournament, was pinned in three 3 minutes and 40 seconds by Nyssa’s Brian Beck in her first match, then was eliminated after losing 8-0 to Dayton’s Moses Kameshina.

Before her first match, New was followed by six photographers, a television cameraman and a person holding a microphone carrier for a Portland radio station. Before she stepped onto the mat, the public address announcer noted New was the first girl to compete in the tournament.

New seemed unimpressed.

“To me, this is not a big deal,” New said. “I don’t see it as a male-female thing; I see it as we’re both wrestlers.”

The mostly male Coliseum crowd gave her only light applause, but New was of special interest to high school girls from Oregon City, who are working at the competition this weekend.

“I was supposed to be working, but I stopped and watched her,” freshman Susan Mumm said. “I think she’s an inspiration to girls.”

Added freshman Natalie Beijer: “I think it’s awesome. She’s proving that she can do it and that it’s not just a guy-dominated sport.”

There are about 220,000 high school wrestlers nationally, but only 1,000 are girls, and several dozen are in Oregon.

“For other girls, it might be a big deal that I’m here, because for a girl to do just as good as a guy is awesome,” New said. “Especially when we are always told that we are weaker.”

To qualify for state, New needed to place second at the District 3 tournament. She placed third but qualified under a provisional rule that allows the third-place finisher to challenge the second-place finisher.

Her request went unchallenged because the second-place finisher, teammate Wes Hall, was injured and unable to wrestle again.

After her first match, New looked worn. Her face was flushed and her mouth dry. Her sandy-brown hair, worn in a ponytail, was frazzled.

“He was a lot stronger than I was,” New said. “Especially in the arms. It was hard for me to get up off the mat.”

New also competes in the pole vault, an event where she shares the school record, and the 1,500-meter run during the spring track season. She wanted an activity to stay in shape during the winter, and the basketball team already had too many girls.

Instead of trying to find something to do in Bonanza, a town of fewer than 1,000 people that has two gas stations and a store, New went out for wrestling.