Wrestling isn’t exactly a co-ed sport. The rules, the strategies, even the uniforms are made for male athletes. Don’t tell Cat Lallier that. Lallier joined the Milford Middle School wrestling team in eighth grade, and went on to the MHS squad the next year. She made varsity, as the 103-pound starter, but suffered through a crushing freshman season. Although she was part of the squad that won the Division II state championship, she didn’t win a single contested match, collecting her only victories by forfeit. But this year that changed. She recorded her first career win by decision at the Milford Invitational, and followed it with an overpowering pin and a technical fall to take fifth place in the tournament. This year, Lallier is 2-1 in dual meets and 9-8 overall, including two pins. She recorded one of the Bucs’ four wins against Smyrna last week, a dominating major decision over Cody Cummings.
Q What drove you to join the wrestling program?
A No one sent me toward it at all. During the summer after seventh grade, I started to get into a lot of personal-fitness things, and wrestling seemed like a logical step from there. One day, one of my friends, Jon McIlvain, told me that wrestling tryouts were that day, and I told him, “I’m coming with you.” He didn’t believe me at first, but I called my mom to get her to bring me some shorts, and I went in. I talked to (Milford Middle School Head Coach) Jesse Parsley, he said OK, and I went from there.
Q Have you run into people who don’t think you should be on the team?
A I’ve actually had a referee talking to another ref, right in front of me, while looking at me, talking about how much they disapprove of it. It’s not really a downer, but you kind of worry when your score is on the line with those kind of people. The refs aren’t supposed to be biased, but you can’t tell them what to do.
Q What about the boys you wrestle against?
A On occasion, they go kind of extra hard, extra nasty, but I’d do the same thing. I wouldn’t want to lose to a girl. But some of them don’t think I should be here either. This year, there’s usually at least one other girl on the other team. It’s not an unusual feeling anymore, although it was at first — the idea of “what are you doing here?” — but that’s mostly gone now.
Q What did you do to improve after your freshman year?
A Last year I had a pretty awful season, and Coach (Don Parsley) is always telling us that we have to close the gap. I knew a lot of guys wouldn’t be doing anything over the summer, so I did all our off-season practices, and then I went to camp and some clinics — just worked at any opportunity that I could.
Q Do you have to use any particular strategy as a girl wrestling against boys?
A I didn’t really have any kind of style at all last year. I’m not very strong, because I’m a girl, and I don’t have that much reach, so lately I’ve been trying to work with what people give me — work with their mistakes to get my opportunities.
Q What are your goals for the rest of the season?
A Coach told me he believes I can make states. I think I can, too. I’d only have to place sixth at the conference tournament, and I’ve only lost one match in a dual meet so far. The way it looks for the rest of the season, I’m not “supposed” to lose many more, if you look at it on paper. My goal is to at least make it to states — I’d be the first girl to get that far.
Milford, Del. —
