Girls wrestling has been pinning down the competition! The girls have a record of three wins and one loss in the Moore League. They had a match against Poly on Dec. 8, 2023 in which they lost their opener (first match of the season). According to The562.org, Millikan had a lead that was made possible by Madison Baxter, Jaelen Escala, Nohea Booth, and Nataly Cardenas. However, Poly overcame the lead and ended up winning those matches by decision in a tiebreaker.
Varsity wrestler Hailey Fernandez said, “To be on the varsity wrestling team comes with great commitment, but all-around fun.”
“Our coach is always willing to help us and is very supportive in every decision we make. [He’s] always steering us in the right direction and putting us on track to achieve our goals,” said Fernandez.
Daniel Lopez, the girls wrestling coach said, “It’s a unique experience. I’ve been the head coach of the girl’s program for the last 2 years, [and] it’s changed my outlook on wrestling.
Wrestling is a sport [where] you have to figure out your bod[y] and what works for you,” said Lopez.
Freshman Nohea Booth in the PEACE pathway said, “I want to rebuild the name for the girls team with my teammates and bring a CIF banner back on the wall.” Booth is very determined and will definitely be a threatening opponent in her next three years at Millikan.
“My coach is amazing at creating an atmosphere that truly makes people fall in love with wrestling,” said Booth.
“He [Lopez] has so much passion in what he does and you can really tell he has love for the sport and the athletes in our program. [We] are extremely lucky to have him,” says Booth.
“[Wrestling] has elevated my coaching techniques and opened my mind to gray areas of [the sport],” Lopez finished.
The girls went against Wilson on Jan. 11, and won all of their matches! They also had matches on Thursday, Jan. 18 against Lakewood and we’re so proud of them!
The girls have a lot of potential to be CIF champs this year and we’re rooting for them!
Mauricio Montanez • Feb 14, 2024 at 1:13 pm
On January 29, 2024, Jeremey Tokudomi wrote an article titled “Girls Wrestling”. This article is very captivating. The author, Jeremey Tokudomi does a good job attracting the readers with his opening statement, “Girls wrestling has been pinning down the competition!”. Making use of this witty double entendre, the hook is attractive.
Tokudomi creates a well written article, yet included quite a bit of flaws. The hook is great but the rest of the article feels like it lacks substance. The intention of this article is quite unclear. Tokudomi leads with the fact that Millikan lost their first Moore League duel match to Poly and although he later states Millikan’s win at Wilson, the victory feels overshadowed by the initial loss. Tokudomi also mentions Millikan’s Moore League duel match at Lakewood, yet leaves the reader unsure whether they won. Tokudomi states in the article, “They also had matches on Thursday, Jan. 18 against Lakewood and we’re so proud of them!” Although mentioned with positive dictation, saying “we’re so proud of them!” the reader is still unsure of Millikan Girls Wrestling victory at Lakewood.
Regardless, Jeremey Tokudomi did a wonderful job informing the reader about the championship journey of the girls wrestling team.
Adrian Portillo • Feb 14, 2024 at 1:06 pm
On January 29, 2024 Jermey Tokudomi wrote an article titled “Girls Wrestling”. This article gave good insight on how this year’s girl’s wrestling is doing. So far they are doing excellent with a record of three wins and one loss, which is not bad at all. I love to hear that a new sport for girls is an option to do and that it gives opportunities to them to enjoy and compete in them. Tokudomi explains that these girls are striving to do even better and it showed when they defeated Wilson and won all their matches on the 11th of January. This also proves that the sports at Millikan keep improving. I myself am an athlete and l always love to see when any sport is doing very well. Tokudomi also states the girls wrestling team has a chance to become CIF champs this year, hopefully they can fulfill this goal and I wish them the very best. Overall this article was very informative and Tokudomi did an excellent job providing details about the girl’s wrestling team this year.
Anna Amaya • Feb 14, 2024 at 11:03 am
This article does an excellent job of informing the rest of the students on campus of how successful the girls wrestling team is doing and what their goals are for the future. The article captures the perspectives of the girls on the team and coach who says leading the girls into the sport has both changed hsi and their perspective. I think it’s important to continue writing and spreading the word about girls in major sports that usually don;t get much attention. It informs and helps the team get more recruits along with sharing the love they have for the sport.
Although the article includes multiple perspectives, there could be more details about what the girls plan to do with that sport in the future. There could be details included if they want to continue that sport in college or if they plan to continue playing the rest of their high school career.
Luke Gossage • Feb 14, 2024 at 9:39 am
On January 29, 2024, Payton wrote an article titled “Girls Wrestling”. The article briefly explained how the scenery in the girl wrestling team would be to those on the outside. The article provides a lot of information about the team and the games they play along with the players, the environment and the coach himself. The article helps a lot to try to persuade people and the reader to maybe join the team themselves. I thought that the article was interesting specifically because I have a lot of friends on the girls wrestling team who I thought I would see in the article. The article was well written and referred to the coaches and got direct information from them that they provided in the text with quotes to show their credibility. The girls wrestling team helps to show empowerment in our school as they compete and consistently win with other schools. I believe that it could be one of our schools best qualities.
Natalia W Bonilla • Feb 13, 2024 at 9:33 am
On January 29, 2024, Payton wrote an article titled “Girls Wrestling”. Around this time last year I began to follow the Millikan Girls Wrestling team. I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the performance, but above all, their work ethic. The amount of hard work that the Millikan puts in is quite impressive, and is obviously paying off.
One person that I am particularly proud of is my little sister, Gabriela Bonilla. My sister often comes home from intense practices, and still finds time to spar with my dad. Even if her schedule is packed with wrestling tournaments and practices, she still manages to maintain their academic prowess and all As. She started wrestling in 2023, and with a year’s work of practice she is already such a great wrestler and accomplished many great things: she scored an astounding 8-second pin, was 562.org athlete of the week, and has placed in many of the tournaments she has been to. I am so incredibly proud of her and I look forward to watching my sister, as well as the Millikan Girls wrestling team grow.
Mya Ogden • Feb 13, 2024 at 9:19 am
This article gives detail about the Millikan Girls Wrestling team and their performance. I found this article to be very interesting due to the fact that there is not much announcement of wrestling that I usually hear of, especially girls wrestling. Comparatively to many other sports who have a light shined upon them. I found this article very informing of all of the girls wrestling achievements and their winning streak. I had no idea that girls wrestling was performing at this level without hearing about it often and the writer does a great job of that. I found it very informative to have the words of the member from the team speak about her experience and point of view of being on the team and what it consists of. To add on, having the wrestling coach speak upon how him being the coach of girls wrestling had changed his point of view of wrestling as a whole demonstrates the great impact that these girls have. Overall this article was very informative and I hope to be able to hear more about their achievements.
JP Mialovski • Feb 13, 2024 at 9:09 am
On January 29, 2024, Jeremy Tokudomi wrote an article titled “Girls Wrestling”. It is really awesome to see how well the girls wrestling has been doing this past year. Being an athlete myself, I love seeing other sports succeed. It was sad seeing Poly win by just a little bit but the girls showed determination and beat Wilson pretty good. I’m happy to see how the wrestling program is building and growing. The girls are crushing the competition. I’m an athlete here at Millikan and I love to see the other athletic programs succeed. When they succeed, it gives the other programs more confidence and builds the overall moral of Millikan sports as a whole! I’m super excited to see how the rest of Millikan’s girl wrestling team does the rest of the year. I’m super confident that they will do very well and make the rest of Millikan proud! Congrats on a great start!