With a legacy cemented on the wall to display athleticism across the Bishop Gym at West Chicago Community High School, senior Jayden Huesca-Rodriguez advances this weekend to the IHSA State tournament for the third time in her wrestling career.

Huseca-Rodriguez joined wrestling as a sophomore, and defied the odds, winning first place in her weight class at that year’s state competition. She returned to Bloomington-Normal as a junior, and was the runner-up. Now, Huesca-Rodriguez is looking to reclaim her title with the support of her teammates.

The 2023-24 season for girls’ wrestling was a strong one, with athletes on the podium at most meets. Notably. senior Jenny Espinal was a top competitor at several meets, and she joined Huesca-Rodriguez at IHSA Sectionals in February 2024.

In the first round, Espinal won against Olivia Furlon of Schaumburg. Espinal’s pin was quick.

“I was a little slow on my feet, and my mind wasn’t in my wrestling match – I was kind of just there,” Espinal said.

She then lost the following two matches, but put up a good fight.

“I felt like I was ready to go in there and wrestle, but unfortunately, I had little mistakes in there that cost me my match. It was a good experience, good season, though,” Espinal.

Huesca-Rodriguez went into the sectional competition with a bye, due to her previous record. On Friday, Feb. 9, she went head-to-head with Nadia Razzak of Schaumburg, and won the match. Huesca-Rodriguez then went up against Sophie Kelner of Lockport on Feb. 10, and defeated her as well.

While Huesca-Rodriguez lost the next two rounds, she advanced to the state competition. She will square off against some of the best athletes in the state of Illinois on Feb. 23-24.

However, before the two wrestlers became sectional qualifiers and Huesca-Rodriguez headed to state, each had a pathway to follow – one they carved out themselves. Those journeys are very unique, and special, and deserve recognition. Both athletes joined girls’ wrestling for different reasons, but end up on the same team.

“I started wrestling my sophomore year. I started because a good friend of mine was Isabella at the time. She was part of the first team ever. She was a senior, and, then, I was a sophomore. I knew her because of soccer, and I’m a person that likes to try, just for fun. So I was like, ‘Oh, let me just go try wrestling for fun.’ And this is how my wrestling career started,” Huesca-Rodriguez said.

Espinal, on the other hand, started from a different state.

“I started my junior year. The reason I started wrestling was because I saw it when I was in North Carolina my sophomore year, and I really enjoyed the physical sports. So I thought it would be something to try because I felt like I would have liked it. Yeah, that’s the only reason I started wrestling was in North Carolina. Before I actually wanted to wrestle because of my brother. But there was no girls team. And I didn’t want to just go in with a bunch of dudes. So my junior hit, and I know there was a girl wrestling team. So then I just joined,” Espinal said.

Although joining a sport sounds easy, training for meets is challenging for wrestlers. To lighten the load, wrestlers have a wrestling bubby, who helps prepare each other for the matches ahead, along with a team to cheer and motivate wrestlers, giving a boost of morale.

“If you’re in the wrestling room, you’re practicing hard. It’s gonna make you better when you’re in the middle of the mat, wrestling. It’s all kind of just adrenaline kicking in in the middle of the mat, so you kind of just have to give it your all and, think that’s your last match because you always have to give you 100 percent. Every single match, regardless if you don’t feel good, if you’re having a bad day – it’s all mental. You just have to go in there and do it,” Espinal said.

The commaderie is essential to doing well, and WEGO’s team prides itself on the bond the girls have created.

“I do think it’s a team sport as well. Because throughout practices, you need your partner to, your partners what makes you better. And there’s always your teammates cheering you on from this from the side, [which] is kind of helpful,” Espinal said.

Despite the fact wrestling is a team sport, once on the mat, the wrestler is alone, facing their battles and their opponent alone. That is why practices are a high priority in wrestlers’ schedules so when the Wildcats step into competition, they have a sense of security with their skills. In the end, tournaments are a test for wrestlers to see if their training decides their outcome during their match.

“When you step in the mat, I say it’s just you against you. You got to take practice really serious at times because the positions we practice, and practice, and practice is because those are the situations we’re in during wrestling. So tomorrow as soon as you hear the blow, that whistle blow, you just know. You start thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this.’ It’s just like, in every other sport,” Huesca said.

Everyone loses at some point in their lives but how individuals overcome those losses is what truly matters and WEGO’s two wrestlers deal with disappointments differently, as a way of growth and learning.

“Obviously, [losing] is one of [those] bad feelings. Because like we said earlier, it’s an individual sport. So that’s when you’re like, ‘Oh, you lose,’ because it’s not new. It’s the amount of work that you’ve been putting into practice. And sometimes, people in the sport are really good.  People in the sport dedicate their lives to a sport. We’ve seen it with some of our wrestlers here. They dedicate everything to the rest of the sport. So when you lose? Obviously, you’ll get into your emotions, you will be really upset, but you’re gonna learn from it,” Huesca said.

Espinal also deals with loss in various ways.

“This year, it’s kind of different for me. Last year, I [would] get really emotional about it. I’d leave, I would even cry about it after my matches because I would be so disappointed in myself knowing that I was working hard in the wrestling room, but I couldn’t get it out there. But this is year, if I lose, it’s kind of like ‘Oh, well, it’s okay. We’ll get her next time.’ There’s always a next time in wrestling.  You’re gonna see them later on, at sectionals, regionals. You can shrug it off my shoulders and just keep going, hoping that I win the other matches,” Espinal said.

With the freshmen girls who joined wrestling in large numbers this year, the next-gen wrestlers offer promise. They will carry the torch of WEGO’s girls’ wrestling to new heights for which the seniors, like Huesca-Rodriguez and Espinal, who have laid the foundations. Both hope that the program will continue to grow and prosper when they head to college in the fall.

“This year, the team has grown a lot. And when I saw the freshmen coming, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is exactly what our team needs.’ They improved so much this year, like Jenny was saying, if they start now, you just wait for their junior, senior year. You’re gonna have state qualifier, state champions, you know. This is just the beginning of being a women’s wrestling team. This is the beginning of something really big,” Huesca-Rodriguez said.

Espinal echoed those sentiments.

“All these freshmen would put the work in the room. And you can tell on the mat that they’ve been practicing. It’s first year and they were already going against a champion or nationally-ranked girls and they were putting up a fight,” Espinal said.

She hopes that more female athletes will consider joining wrestling in the future.

“I feel like it should be a sport that should be open for every single girl, even if they think that ‘Oh, that’s not for me.’ They should still try it because it’s the people you least expect to do a sport that’s really physical that sometimes [are] good,” Espinal said.