This Hilton Head teen is a wrestling champ competing against the boys. She’s 18-0.
At 15 years old, Zao Estrada could take you down with her bare hands.
After all, she grew up around wrestling mats.
In Colorado, where she lived until last April, she started wrestling at age 5. Her dad wrestled in high school and now teaches the sport to young kids. Her older sister, Jerzie, is a three-time state wrestling champ in California and Colorado and made the world team multiple times.
Estrada recalls as a little girl putting down her Barbie dolls to take the mat for her early wrestling matches. Whether she won or lost, she came off the mat into her dad’s arms. He’d pick her up and throw her in the air, then return her to the ground to retrieve her Barbies.
Now, her dad doesn’t pick her up after she comes off the mat.
Estrada is a state wrestling champ who now needs to qualify for the boy’s state competition March 5.
She’s not only expected to qualify, Estrada is expected to win.
Girls wrestling gaining popularity
Estrada’s weekdays start at 6:30 a.m. with a 3- to 5-mile run. She lifts weights with her dad and then comes home to get ready for the day.
Then she goes to class at Hilton Head Island High School.
Estrada, a freshman, became Hilton Head’s first female state wrestling champion on Jan. 31. In a state with no school-sanctioned girl’s wrestling teams, Estrada is the lone girl on Hilton Head High’s team.
Since Estrada’s family moved here during the pandemic, she can’t tell you her favorite island restaurant beyond takeout from Java Burrito. She forgets the name Coligny Beach.
But Estrada was far from the stereotypical new kid at school.
Her dad, Jeffery, called ahead before the move to make sure her coach, Patrick Boulware, would have a spot for her on the team. Boulware connected her with some of the boys on the team and other girls at Hilton Head High to help her feel welcome.
Still, she worried that showing up at practice for the first time would be awkward.
“I came here, and it felt like I‘d known them all for so long,” she said of her teammates. “I fit right in on the team.”
But adjusting to life far from Colorado, where every high school had girls’ and boys’ wrestling teams, was jarring for the young athlete.
“It’s a really big change,” Estrada said. “All I did was wrestle girls for four straight years. Here, I’ve seen rarely any girls. I’ve maybe seen three girls on other teams at tournaments.”
Estrada is among a growing number of female wrestlers.
In 1994, there were 804 female high school wrestlers in the U.S.
In 2018, the number was 26 times higher: 21,124 girls were high school wrestlers, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. High school girls’ wrestling participation numbers are higher than the NCAA-sponsored and emerging sports of crew, fencing, skiing, rifle, rugby, sand volleyball and equestrian.
Still, South Carolina is one of 22 states that doesn’t sanction an official state championship for girls. Instead, girls win non-sanctioned competitions to make their way to the top.
Estrada’s most recent win, the one that made her a state champ, happened at the Clover High School Season Championship.
Under pressure
When she’s not wrestling, training or procrastinating doing her history homework, Estrada loves to watch Grey’s Anatomy and bake with her family.
She makes really good brownies that stay gooey on the inside for days. Before the pandemic curtailed family gatherings, her family counted on her to bring an amazing dessert.
Going to school isn’t just a countdown to wrestling practice, either. Estrada loves math and learning new things about it.
Although she’s only halfway through her freshman year of high school, Estrada hopes to earn a teaching degree. She may not want to be a teacher, though.
“I love to bake and cook, so I want to own my own restaurant,” she said. “I also like real estate, so I think I should have that as a job to fall back on.”
One of her favorite things about wrestling is the ability to travel and experience new places. She drives to Summerville every weekend with her dad to help coach a team there, and she looks forward to summer tournaments in Fargo, North Dakota.
But being a really good wrestler comes with pressure.
“It’s just a lot,” she said. “Everyone is like, ‘Win boy’s state!’ And it’s so much pressure on you. It’s so hard to win, and if you lose, people get sad and mad at you.”
Estrada doesn’t really like talking about being the only girl or answering questions about whether running drills with her male teammates is weird for her. When people at school ask her about it, she usually tells them, “you’d think it would be. But it’s not.”
At 15, Estrada is at an age when young people can be overly critical of their bodies. Pressure from school, sports, popular culture and friends can combine to foster unhealthy eating habits.
Estrada is on a strict diet and says being hyper-aware of her weight comes with the territory. A lot of the time, wrestling helps her feel strong and confident. But she’s human, too.
When things get dark inside, Estrada looks outward for support from her coach, her parents and her three sisters.
“I have hate and fear in my body,” she admitted. “When I do have hate and fear, there’s always someone there to tell me it’s fine and I’m perfect just the way I am. ... My family always boosts my confidence.”
Undefeated
Estrada wrestles in different weight classes based on who’s on the other side of the mat.
When her opponent is a girl, she is usually in the 112-pound weight class — the class she dominated at state last weekend.
More often than not, Estrada wrestles boys in the 106-pound weight class.
Wrestlers weigh in before each match to determine their class. In general, it’s advisable to be at the top of your weight class and stay there. If you gain more than a few pounds, you’re the smallest wrestler in the class, putting you at a disadvantage.
But Estrada seems to buck that trend.
She’s 18-0 this season whether she’s wrestling boys or girls.
Not every team has a wrestler in the 106-pound weight class, since it’s the smallest. In that case, she gets a bye.
Less often, she faces a wrestler who refuses to compete with Estrada because she’s a girl.
“I’ve had that happen to me before, they just wouldn’t wrestle us because we were women, and they think it’s disrespectful or rude to hurt a woman,” she said.
An important part of this viewpoint, she says, is that the goal of wrestling is never to hurt an opponent, it’s simply to beat them.
While some wrestlers rely on anger or aggression to motivate them on the mat, Estrada draws on her desire to prove herself and boost her confidence.
As for boys who decline to wrestle her, Estrada said, “It’s my choice to be in the sport. You should try and beat me.”
Try.
