“She doesn’t shoot a lot of takedowns. She’s more of an aggressive throwing wrestler. That’s not really our team’s style, but that’s her style and we’re trying to help her become more and more dangerous with it. She’s won several matches this year against boys that were just clobbering her on the scoreboard. But sooner or later they walked into a throw, and she’s a very good finisher. She was able to pin them.”

A firstWatson, who has been Wilmot’s coach since 1990, says it is not rare to have females in the wrestling program. But last season when Keen pinned her opponent at the Madison Duals, he said he believes she was the first female on a Wilmot varsity team to win a match that was not by a forfeit.

“It was nice, but honestly, we don’t treat our girl wrestlers as girls,” Watson said. “They’re just wrestlers for Wilmot. We didn’t make a big deal out of it. ... We treat them all the same and try not to play favorites with anybody. She’s a terrific athlete, but the truth is, we have quite a few terrific athletes in our program. Some are girls and some are boys.”

Said Keen: “I thought it was cool. I didn’t know I was the first one until after he told me. I was really excited to be the first one.”