The team finishes its historic season in February.

Two women circled on the mat, each looking for a way to take down her opponent.

Head to head, evenly matched, they struggled against each other as pop music blared and their coach shouted feedback.

Just another day of practice on Gannon University's history-making women's wrestling team.

Gannon announced less than a year ago that it would become the 39th school to sponsor women's wrestling and the first in Pennsylvania to offer the sport as a four-year intercollegiate program.

As their historic inaugural season draws to a close, members of the team and their coaches reflected on the triumphs and challenges that came with breaking down that barrier.

"It's a good experience," said Gabby Perez, a freshman who leads the team with a 12-6 record. "I get to be a part of something that's hopefully starting to make it big."

'Bright spots' in a tough season



The season has brought its share of difficulties for the young team, which stands at a 1-5 overall record on the season as it heads into its only home appearance on Saturday.

Christen Dierken, the team's coach, said she expected the team would hit snags during its first year.

"This year is just a growing year, a learning year," she said in November. "I'm looking more for individual growth."

Perez, 18, helped bring home the program's first team dual win at the National Wrestling Coaches Association National Duals in Louisville this past weekend.



"There's been ups and downs but there's definitely been bright spots," said David Dierken, the team's assistant coach and Christen Dierken's husband. "Gabby, her performance is a bright spot on the map."

One of the newest members of the team also contributed to the team's victory against New York's Nassau Community College.

Stephanie Floor, who joined the team in December with her twin sister, Danielle Floor, won in her first competition of the season.

She and her sister traveled from their home in American Samoa, the tiny Pacific island, to join the team. But first, they stopped at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires to represent American Samoa in handball.

The Youth Olympics kept them busy during the fall semester, so their freshman years at Gannon will start with the new semester.

Stephanie Floor, now 18, hasn't wrestled since eighth grade because opportunities dropped off after her family moved to American Samoa from New York, where she had been comfortable wrestling boys.

"The guys didn't want to wrestle a girl" in American Samoa, she said. "They didn't want a girl to beat them."

With few female partners available in American Samoa, Floor quit wrestling and moved on to handball. But the opportunity to join Gannon's team re-ignited her interest in wrestling.

She was thrilled to help bring the team a victory against Nassau.

"It really helps boost my confidence," Floor said. "I lost my first two matches but was able to improve throughout each one."

Floor's teammates also come from a patchwork of backgrounds because opportunities for girls to participate in high school wrestling can vary wildly.

"Everybody in our program is coming from a different level," Christen Dierken said. "Some wrestled girls; some wrestled boys. Some never really wrestled; some have been wrestling four-plus years."

Dierken said she's aiming to expand the team's roster to 25 for the 2019-20 season.

This season, injuries took out more than half the team's 14-member roster for portions of the season.

After a promising start, Mikayla Dockweiler, of Corpus Christi, Texas, broke her arm at a tournament in early November. The 19-year-old had to work on school assignments one-handed while she recovered in a full cast.

"Our team is beat up and bruised, but I actually have a respect for how much we are pushing through everything," she said after the injury.

The setback didn't keep Dockweiler down. She continued working out with the team as her arm healed.



"I would not dream of not continuing wrestling," she said. "It would be like I'm missing a part of my life."

A stress fracture ended Theresa Guarriello's season early, but she continued to help out as the team's strength and conditioning coach.

Guarriello, 23, joined the team as a graduate student, with only one semester of eligibility. She quit her side jobs to be able to focus on her new sport.

"Everyone thought I was crazy, never wrestling before and, going into my fifth year of college, just picking up wrestling," she said.

But the 2013 Fort LeBoeuf High School graduate had watched her brothers wrestle for years, including on the Gannon men's team, and knew that she loved the sport. She just hadn't thought of it as a serious option for women.

"I didn't take it serious until I heard it was coming to Gannon," she said. "I wish I had started sooner because I love this sport."

Perez and Dockweiler had opportunities to wrestle on female teams in high school. Both said girls wrestling is more common in their home states of Hawaii and Texas.

Perez learned about wrestling at a school activity fair and tried it out as a way to get in shape. Dockweiler first joined her high school's team after her friends and the high school's wrestling coach encouraged her to try it.

"I went into it and tried it and loved it," Dockweiler said.

Deep bonds

This season's challenges have brought the team together. So has missing home; the group is mostly made up of freshmen who are transitioning to a new way of life as they start college.

Perez said the decision to leave her home in Hawaii for school was painful.

"My parents helped me make the decision," she said. "I couldn't do it on my own because of how close I am (to them). They encouraged me to go because they never got the opportunity to go to college and they wanted that for me."

The Dierkens can relate to members of the team who are far from home — they moved to Erie for Christen Dierken's coaching job and don't have family in the area, David Dierken said.

"We don't have a family here," he said. "They don't have family here either. This is our family."

The Dierkens' 17-month-old daughter, Scarlette, goes to practice with her parents every day.

Christen and David Dierken keep an eye on Scarlette while she toddles around the wrestling room at Gannon's Recreation and Wellness Center. As practice heats up on the mat, they know the rest of the team is watching out for her, too.

"She loves all of them," David Dierken said. Christen Dierken is expecting a second child in the next few weeks.

The team members have also traveled hundreds of miles together to compete because there are relatively few women's teams nationwide. They've traveled to Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and New York for competitions.

They will head to Marietta, Georgia, for the Women's Collegiate Wrestling Association Nationals on Feb. 8.

"Traveling, everyone comes together," Perez said. "We all have things to laugh about, or if we're cutting weight, we have that to bond about."

An emerging sport

Since Gannon became the first school in Pennsylvania to offer four-year intercollegiate women's wrestling, two other Pennsylvania schools have announced plans to add the sport.

East Stroudsburg University and Delaware Valley University will open their women's wrestling programs in the fall.

"We were glad that we were that first university to take that step forward," said Lisa Goddard McGuirk, Gannon's athletic director.

McGuirk said she and the Gannon men's wrestling coach, Don Henry, began examining the possibility of a women's team a few years ago.

"It really seemed like a great opportunity to afford this very overwhelming number of high school athletes pursuing wrestling the opportunity to pursue their dreams at the college level," McGuirk said.

Henry said adding a women's team was a logical step in a sport that is increasingly inclusive of women and girls.

"It's more and more that the girls are starting to choose wrestling as a sport," he said. "We wanted to be prepared."

As the sport grows, so has the push for it to gain recognition from the NCAA. Women's wrestling has been an Olympic sport since 2004 but is not an NCAA-sanctioned sport. The Women's Collegiate Wrestling Association is the sport's governing body.

Sally Roberts, the founder and executive director of Wrestle Like a Girl, is among those trying to get women's wrestling the NCAA's emerging sport status — a step on the way to NCAA championship status. Roberts' Washington, D.C.-based organization works to increase opportunities for girls to wrestle.

NCAA research shows that among girls high school sports that don't have an NCAA championship at the college level, wrestling has the highest participation rate at more than 16,500 girls nationwide.

"It's an exploding sport," Roberts said. "There is a pipeline that's being built."

Finding acceptance

Christen Dierken has watched women's wrestling become more widely accepted since her time as a wrestler.

"It's becoming a lot more socially acceptable and even supported," she said.

Boys on her high school team in Fullerton, California, tried to get her to quit and didn't respect her accomplishments, she said.

"They didn't want me there and they did everything they could do get me to quit because I was a girl," Dierken said.

But she decided to stick with wrestling. She went on to wrestle at the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky and to represent the United States at national and international competitions as a member of the U.S. National Team. She also competed in the 2012 Olympic Trials.

An injury ultimately cut her wrestling career short, but she knew she wanted to coach. She jumped at the chance to coach Gannon's team. She was thrilled to see support for the women's team from Henry, the men's team coach.

"To have the men's team's support is phenomenal," she said.

And the women on Dierken's team seem to have avoided the sort of abusive high school environment she experienced, she said.

"It takes time to change people's perspective," she said. "Now there are more girls programs popping up."

Gannon's team is also a source of acceptance for its members. Even if they sometimes get quizzical looks when they tell people they're wrestlers, they've found a team of women who understand — and who also consider cauliflower ear a badge of honor.

"I have home here, too," Perez said.

Madeleine O'Neill can be reached at 870-1728 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNoneill.