Monticello's Taylor gets the OK, begins practice with Anamosa team


Izzy Taylor of Monticello (top) grapples with an Anamosa teammate during a Nov. 3 practice. Taylor has joined the Anamosa team for the upcoming season.

Going through a conditioning run in the Anamosa wrestling room is Izzy Taylor. (Photos by Pete Temple)
GIRLS WRESTLING
By: 
Pete Temple
Express Sports Editor

   Izzy Taylor is not the first Monticello girl to wrestle at the high school level. But she is the first one since girls wrestling became an Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union-sanctioned sport.

   Taylor, a freshman at Monticello High School, has joined the Anamosa girls wrestling team and will compete for the Blue Raiders this coming season. The team began practice Oct. 31.

   “I’m super thankful,” Taylor said in an interview following one of her Anamosa practices. “I never would have thought in a million years that I would be able to wrestle on a sanctioned girls’ team.”

   There were a few barriers to her participation, all of which were taken care of.

   “Ryan Luensman (MHS boys wrestling coach) sent a text to Jake (Wulf, the Anamosa girls wrestling coach),” Taylor said. “He was like, ‘Izzy really wants to wrestle.’ And Jake gave me this opportunity to come down here and wrestle for Anamosa.”

   The Monticello School Board then had to approve Izzy’s participation with the Anamosa team, which it did during its Oct. 24 regular meeting. A North Cedar girl has also joined the Blue Raiders.

   The hope, activities director Tim Lambert said at a recent board meeting, is that Monticello will one day have enough girls to form its own team. But for now, Taylor is blazing the trail.

   “It’s very tough, but it’s amazing, especially if you really enjoy doing the sport,” she said. “I like the team quality too. Because they’re all there for you. If you win or lose, they’re always right by your side.”

   Coach Wulf said she is adjusting well to the new surroundings.

   “Izzy has done a great job adapting to the environment and team,” Wulf said. “I feel like she fits in well with the girls from Anamosa, and from what I can tell there’s a bond forming very quickly throughout the whole team.

   “She’s extremely respectful, coachable, and works very hard every time she steps foot in the room.”

   Taylor said she first became interested in wrestling because of her brother Ian, now a senior on the MHS boys wrestling team.

   “His eighth-grade year he went out (for wrestling), and I was like, ‘That’s really cool,’ ” Taylor said.

   She decided to try it herself, with the Monticello Wrestling Club.

   “I really liked it, and I just kept going from there.”

   The difficulty of the sport is part of its appeal, Taylor said.

   “It’s very tough, but it’s amazing,” she said. “You have to have a really encouraging and I’m-going-to-do-this mindset, because if you don’t, there’s no way that you’re going to get anywhere.

   “It’s going to be tough, but you’re going to get some amazing achievements out of it.”

   Taylor follows in the footsteps of Monticello girls who wrestled with the Panther boys’ team in past years. The most prominent of those was Alaina Sunlin, now a prominent member of the Iowa Wesleyan University women’s wrestling team in Mount Pleasant.

   Sunlin qualified for nationals in 2021. While in high school, she wrestled in the unsanctioned girls’ state tournament, the Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association (IWCOA) event, and finished third.

   She also was a two-time district qualifier with the Panther boys’ team.

   Taylor expressed her gratitude to Sunlin, as well as the school board, coaches, activities departments, “and all those people, because they literally made this happen.

   “Which is amazing.”

 

 

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