Women’s Feature – Victoria Anthony, first 4x WCWA national champion
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by Gary Abbott USA Wrestling
VICTORIA ANTHONY
First four-time WCWA Women’s College Nationals champion
The University of Minnesota – Morris was the first college to create a varsity women’s wrestling team in the mid 1990s, founded by Coach Doug Reese. Other colleges followed shortly, with Missouri Valley College, Menlo College, Pacific University and the University of the Cumberland among the early programs.
At the time, the college programs competed on the USA Wrestling Senior national level, and also competed against varsity programs in Canada, which had established more teams than in the USA. The women’s teams competed in freestyle, the international style, rather than in the American folkstyle.
In 2004, the colleges with women’s teams created a Women’s College National Championships, with the first held at Missouri Valley College. That was also the first year that women’s wrestling was in the Olympic Games, and two of the four members of the historic first U.S. Women’s Olympic Team had wrestled on women’s college teams, Tela O’Donnell, who went to Pacific, and Toccara Montgomery, a student at the Univ. of the Cumberlands.
For the 2008-09 season, the teams on the college level got together and formed a women’s college organization, the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association (WCWA), holding its first national event at Oklahoma City University. The group created bylaws, elected officers and set rules for recruiting and academic requirements.
Victoria Anthony was a talented high school wrestler from Huntington Beach, Calif., who was very active in USA Wrestling’s age-group programs. Anthony had come into wrestling with a judo background, and had explosive throwing abilities. Not only did Anthony win a Junior Nationals title, but after her senior year in high school, she made the FILA Junior World Team, and won a Junior World gold medal at 44 kg/197 lbs.
When it was time to go to college in 2009-10 season, Anthony decided to stay on the West Coast, going north across the border to Simon Fraser University in the Vancouver area. The coach at Simon Fraser was Mike Jones, an NCAA runner-up for Oregon State, who also headed north to Canada to pursue his coaching career. Jones developed numerous Olympic caliber athletes at Simon Fraser, including Olympic champions Daniel Igali and Carol Huyhn of Canada.
Simon Fraser wrestled in the CIS, the Canadian College national organization, which held college national events for both men and women in freestyle wrestling. But by the time Anthony joined the Simon Fraser team, Coach Jones had entered the Clan women’s program in the WCWA, to wrestle against the American college varsity programs.
As a freshman, Anthony competed at 48 kg/105.5 lbs. and earned the top seed at the 2010 WCWA Nationals held at Missouri Valley College. She reached the finals, where she met another past Junior World champion, Nicole Woody of Oklahoma City, the No. 2 seed. Anthony defeated Woody in a very close battle, 0-2, 1-0, 3-0, to claim her first college national title.
Later that summer, Anthony returned to the FILA Junior World Championships and won her second gold medal, this time at 48 kg. She became the second two-time Junior World champion for the USA in women’s freestyle, following in the footsteps of Ali Bernard of Minnesota, an eventual two-time Olympian.
In her sophomore year, another talented American and close friend of Victoria’s, Helen Maroulis, decided to transfer to Simon Fraser, As a freshman at Missouri Baptist University, Maroulis had won the WCWA Nationals, also in a very close finals match. When Maroulis joined her friend Victoria up in Canada, they became the star wrestlers for Simon Fraser, along with many of Canada’s top women’s college wrestlers and Olympic prospects.
At the 2011 WCWA Nationals as sophomores, Anthony and Maroulis repeated as champions. Anthony had an impressive finals at 48 kg, pinning Emily Martin of King College in the finals. Maroulis was pushed to the limit at 55 kg/121 lbs., getting past two-time WCWA national champion Michaela Hutchison of Oklahoma City, 7-1, 1-2, 2-1.
In 2011-12, both Maroulis and Anthony took a year off from college competition to pursue their Olympic quest. Maroulis was a 12 U.S. Open champion, but was beaten in the Olympic Trials finals series in Iowa City by Kelsey Campbell. Anthony placed third in the Olympic Trials, with the team berth going to Clarissa Chun, who later ended up winning a bronze medal at the London Games.
Upon return to college, Anthony and Maroulis returned to the top of the college scene. As juniors in 2013, Anthony and Maroulis won their third WCWA national titles. Anthony had a tight finals match, stopping Emily Martin of King in the finals, 1-0, 1-0. Maroulis was named Outstanding Wrestler, after beating 2012 WCWA nationals champion Shauna Isbel of Lindenwood in the finals, 1-0, 2-0. The two Americans helped lead Simon Fraser to its first WCWA team title, which had six individual champions. Other champions for the Clan included Danielle Lappage, a Junior World champion for Canada, as well as Canadians Justina Distasio, Sidney Morrison and Jenna McLatchy.
The 2013 summer freestyle season saw both Anthony and Maroulis make the U.S. Senior World Team. At the World Team Trials, featuring Olympic weights, Maroulis made the team at 55 kg, while Anthony placed second at 48 kg behind Alyssa Lampe. Two months later, Anthony went up a weight to 51 kg in the Non-Olympic Weight World Team Trials, giving up size to her opponents, but won the event. She beat past World Team members Whitney Conder in the semifinals and Jessica Medina in the finals series. At the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Anthony placed fifth and Maroulis was seventh, falling short of their goals.
As college seniors, both Victoria and Helen had a chance to make history with their fourth college titles. The 2014 WCWA Nationals were held in St. Louis, Mo. at Missouri Baptist University. Both were No. 1 seeds, and both powered their way to the finals. Anthony hit the mat first at 109 pounds and quickly got the job done, pinning Campbellsville freshman Breonnah Neal in just 24 seconds. Three weights later, Maroulis stepped out on the mat at 130 pounds and also dispatched her opponent quickly, with a pin in 1:10 over Oklahoma City’s Rachel McFarland.
Although Victoria Anthony was the first four-time WCWA national champion, you can’t tell the story without including the second one, Helen Maroulis. Both ended up reaching this tremendous achievement on the same night, side-by-side.
“It was a really exciting day. I set this goal a long time ago. Seeing it through was exciting. It was great to share this with one of my closest friends and teammates, Helen Maroulis. It was a historic day overall. We were able to do this together, which was cool,” said Anthony.
With college over, Anthony and Maroulis have focused entirely on their Olympic goals. Currently, Anthony is on a hot streak at 48 kg, with victories over two-time World medalist Alyssa Lampe and World champion and Olympic medalist Clarissa Chun already this season. Maroulis is now a two-time World medalist (silver in 2012 and bronze in 2014). Anthony and Maroulis are training together regularly in Anthony’s native California, working with Coach Valentin Kalika, who also trains women’s star Elena Pirozhkova and young men’s superstar Aaron Pico. Their goal is to make the 2016 Olympic team side-by-side, just like when they dominated women’s college wrestling.
A third college women’s athlete won her fourth WCWA national title in early 2015, Oklahoma City’s Emily Webster at 101 pounds. Like Anthony and Maroulis before her, Webster has been very active in USA Wrestling programs in high school and during college, having already made the U.S. Senior National Team and competed on U.S. age-group World Teams.
First four-time WCWA Women’s College Nationals champion
The University of Minnesota – Morris was the first college to create a varsity women’s wrestling team in the mid 1990s, founded by Coach Doug Reese. Other colleges followed shortly, with Missouri Valley College, Menlo College, Pacific University and the University of the Cumberland among the early programs.
At the time, the college programs competed on the USA Wrestling Senior national level, and also competed against varsity programs in Canada, which had established more teams than in the USA. The women’s teams competed in freestyle, the international style, rather than in the American folkstyle.
In 2004, the colleges with women’s teams created a Women’s College National Championships, with the first held at Missouri Valley College. That was also the first year that women’s wrestling was in the Olympic Games, and two of the four members of the historic first U.S. Women’s Olympic Team had wrestled on women’s college teams, Tela O’Donnell, who went to Pacific, and Toccara Montgomery, a student at the Univ. of the Cumberlands.
For the 2008-09 season, the teams on the college level got together and formed a women’s college organization, the Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association (WCWA), holding its first national event at Oklahoma City University. The group created bylaws, elected officers and set rules for recruiting and academic requirements.
Victoria Anthony was a talented high school wrestler from Huntington Beach, Calif., who was very active in USA Wrestling’s age-group programs. Anthony had come into wrestling with a judo background, and had explosive throwing abilities. Not only did Anthony win a Junior Nationals title, but after her senior year in high school, she made the FILA Junior World Team, and won a Junior World gold medal at 44 kg/197 lbs.
When it was time to go to college in 2009-10 season, Anthony decided to stay on the West Coast, going north across the border to Simon Fraser University in the Vancouver area. The coach at Simon Fraser was Mike Jones, an NCAA runner-up for Oregon State, who also headed north to Canada to pursue his coaching career. Jones developed numerous Olympic caliber athletes at Simon Fraser, including Olympic champions Daniel Igali and Carol Huyhn of Canada.
Simon Fraser wrestled in the CIS, the Canadian College national organization, which held college national events for both men and women in freestyle wrestling. But by the time Anthony joined the Simon Fraser team, Coach Jones had entered the Clan women’s program in the WCWA, to wrestle against the American college varsity programs.
As a freshman, Anthony competed at 48 kg/105.5 lbs. and earned the top seed at the 2010 WCWA Nationals held at Missouri Valley College. She reached the finals, where she met another past Junior World champion, Nicole Woody of Oklahoma City, the No. 2 seed. Anthony defeated Woody in a very close battle, 0-2, 1-0, 3-0, to claim her first college national title.
Later that summer, Anthony returned to the FILA Junior World Championships and won her second gold medal, this time at 48 kg. She became the second two-time Junior World champion for the USA in women’s freestyle, following in the footsteps of Ali Bernard of Minnesota, an eventual two-time Olympian.
In her sophomore year, another talented American and close friend of Victoria’s, Helen Maroulis, decided to transfer to Simon Fraser, As a freshman at Missouri Baptist University, Maroulis had won the WCWA Nationals, also in a very close finals match. When Maroulis joined her friend Victoria up in Canada, they became the star wrestlers for Simon Fraser, along with many of Canada’s top women’s college wrestlers and Olympic prospects.
At the 2011 WCWA Nationals as sophomores, Anthony and Maroulis repeated as champions. Anthony had an impressive finals at 48 kg, pinning Emily Martin of King College in the finals. Maroulis was pushed to the limit at 55 kg/121 lbs., getting past two-time WCWA national champion Michaela Hutchison of Oklahoma City, 7-1, 1-2, 2-1.
In 2011-12, both Maroulis and Anthony took a year off from college competition to pursue their Olympic quest. Maroulis was a 12 U.S. Open champion, but was beaten in the Olympic Trials finals series in Iowa City by Kelsey Campbell. Anthony placed third in the Olympic Trials, with the team berth going to Clarissa Chun, who later ended up winning a bronze medal at the London Games.
Upon return to college, Anthony and Maroulis returned to the top of the college scene. As juniors in 2013, Anthony and Maroulis won their third WCWA national titles. Anthony had a tight finals match, stopping Emily Martin of King in the finals, 1-0, 1-0. Maroulis was named Outstanding Wrestler, after beating 2012 WCWA nationals champion Shauna Isbel of Lindenwood in the finals, 1-0, 2-0. The two Americans helped lead Simon Fraser to its first WCWA team title, which had six individual champions. Other champions for the Clan included Danielle Lappage, a Junior World champion for Canada, as well as Canadians Justina Distasio, Sidney Morrison and Jenna McLatchy.
The 2013 summer freestyle season saw both Anthony and Maroulis make the U.S. Senior World Team. At the World Team Trials, featuring Olympic weights, Maroulis made the team at 55 kg, while Anthony placed second at 48 kg behind Alyssa Lampe. Two months later, Anthony went up a weight to 51 kg in the Non-Olympic Weight World Team Trials, giving up size to her opponents, but won the event. She beat past World Team members Whitney Conder in the semifinals and Jessica Medina in the finals series. At the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Anthony placed fifth and Maroulis was seventh, falling short of their goals.
As college seniors, both Victoria and Helen had a chance to make history with their fourth college titles. The 2014 WCWA Nationals were held in St. Louis, Mo. at Missouri Baptist University. Both were No. 1 seeds, and both powered their way to the finals. Anthony hit the mat first at 109 pounds and quickly got the job done, pinning Campbellsville freshman Breonnah Neal in just 24 seconds. Three weights later, Maroulis stepped out on the mat at 130 pounds and also dispatched her opponent quickly, with a pin in 1:10 over Oklahoma City’s Rachel McFarland.
Although Victoria Anthony was the first four-time WCWA national champion, you can’t tell the story without including the second one, Helen Maroulis. Both ended up reaching this tremendous achievement on the same night, side-by-side.
“It was a really exciting day. I set this goal a long time ago. Seeing it through was exciting. It was great to share this with one of my closest friends and teammates, Helen Maroulis. It was a historic day overall. We were able to do this together, which was cool,” said Anthony.
With college over, Anthony and Maroulis have focused entirely on their Olympic goals. Currently, Anthony is on a hot streak at 48 kg, with victories over two-time World medalist Alyssa Lampe and World champion and Olympic medalist Clarissa Chun already this season. Maroulis is now a two-time World medalist (silver in 2012 and bronze in 2014). Anthony and Maroulis are training together regularly in Anthony’s native California, working with Coach Valentin Kalika, who also trains women’s star Elena Pirozhkova and young men’s superstar Aaron Pico. Their goal is to make the 2016 Olympic team side-by-side, just like when they dominated women’s college wrestling.
A third college women’s athlete won her fourth WCWA national title in early 2015, Oklahoma City’s Emily Webster at 101 pounds. Like Anthony and Maroulis before her, Webster has been very active in USA Wrestling programs in high school and during college, having already made the U.S. Senior National Team and competed on U.S. age-group World Teams.
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