Grappling Girl Bree Garcia rises to the top of the podium in year one By Griffin Fabits
B
ree Garcia admits there’s lots she doesn’t know about wrestling. Coming off her first season on the Barry Goldwater High School girls’ wrestling team, Garcia says there’s still a good deal of it that befuddles her—the moves, the technique, the rules. She found, though—after 10 years of competing in Brazilian jiujitsu—wrestling was similar enough for Garcia to swiftly transition from sport to sport. At the very least, what she does know has served her well thus far. This school year, the sophomore Garcia won a girls’ wrestling state championship, becoming the school’s fi rst female to do so. “I don’t even have the words for it,” she says. “It’s something I was very excited I was able to do, and I’m very proud of myself because of it.” Garcia had never competed in wrestling and never really knew of it as an option before this year, when she learned her school was home to a girls’ team. The Arizona Interscholastic Association added girls’ wrestling to its roster of winter sports in 2018. Garcia is one of six girls in the Barry Goldwater wrestling program. In October, weeks before the season began,
she slowly started to familiarize herself with the sport. And it wasn’t long before she became enamored with it. “Immediately, I fell in love with it,” Garcia says. Garcia saw rapid improvement. And rapid improvement parlayed into a greater love for wrestling. From October to December, she had made the Barry Goldwater girls’ team, learned moves and techniques on the fly, and started to string wins together. She took first place in a December tournament, headlining a list of already-established, prominent female wrestlers around the state. “I had a grasp of what I was going to be seeing when I went to state,” she says. “And I won that tournament.” As the season progressed and the postseason neared, there was increasing certainty that Garcia could win her 130-pound weight class in the Division I conference. She steamrolled through the early rounds, entering the final day feeling “the best I’d ever felt.” “I had a lot of emotions going,” she says. “I had my whole team there to support me. I was excited, ready, optimistic about it.” When she toppled a Canyon Del Oro wrestler in the championship round, Garcia became Barry Goldwater’s fi rst girls’ state
champion—in just the school’s second year of having a program and in Garcia’s rookie season of wrestling. Of course, Garcia’s rise to the top of the podium rests largely on the shoulders of the coaching staff and the support of her teammates. Without them, she reasons, she’s assured she wouldn’t have enjoyed this much success in year one. “I have a great team to be on, especially my coaches. We have a female coach, which has been extremely beneficial for our team. “They’ve just been there in my corner this whole time and have helped me through everything. My team especially, my girl teammates, they’ve been there every practice and are also great wrestlers, too.” The focus now pivots to next season and beyond, to the final two years of high school that could potentially see her wind up a threetime state champion. With that comes a responsibility, she feels, to grow the Barry Goldwater girls’ program from within. “I just hope more people see Barry Goldwater as having a great wrestling team, especially for girls. I hope more girls try out and fall in love with it like how I did.” There’s no timetable for when Garcia will get back to the wrestling room next, due to restrictions from the coronavirus, but she sees the coming months as a terrific chance to learn and study wrestling. Again, she says, there’s so much left to learn. “I hope I can learn some really cool moves and I can expand on what I’ve been doing. There’s a lot I don’t know. It’s my first year. I’ve been relying on some great techniques, but I know there’s a lot more out there for me to do.” Bree Garcia’s wrestling career began in October, and her first season ended with her on top of the podium as a Division I state champion. Garcia is Barry Goldwater High School’s first girls’ wrestling champion. (Photo courtesy Bree Garcia)
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85085 | JUNE 2020
