Continued: Girl wrestler is winning points, making history

LUVERNE, MINN.

With a trip to the state tournament on the line and the match winding down, sweat dripped from the hardworking young wrestler's face. Exhaustion was near, but there was no letup. A cotton ball, stuffed into the wrestler's left nostril, stemmed the flow of blood.

And she didn't mind a bit.

Standing 5-3 and weighing barely 100 pounds, Elissa Reinsma doesn't look the part of a wrestler when she's wearing a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. But when she hits the mat, she makes things happen.

The sophomore from Slayton will make history tonight at Xcel Energy Center when she becomes the first female to compete at the state high school wrestling tournament. She earned the spot by finishing second in the 103-pound division of last weekend's Class 2A, Section 3 tournament in Luverne.

As her final match ended Saturday, the public-address announcer informed the crowd that it was witnessing history. Reinsma, who has been a varsity wrestler at Fulda/Murray County Central for three years, walked off the mat and was wrapped up in a bear hug by her coach as the fans stood and roared.

Elissa had dreamed about the triumphant moment for years. As the only sister to three boys, she grew up jostling and wrestling with her brothers. Her passion for getting to the state tournament was stoked when her oldest brother, Justin, made his first trip to St. Paul four years ago. Justin, now a senior, will compete at state for the fifth time this week.

"It's his senior year, and if I didn't make it, it wouldn't be quite as special," Elissa said.

There are wrestling genetics at work here. The Reinsmas' maternal grandfather, Clet Blegen, was a state champion at Fairbault in 1951 and the coach at Slayton High School from the 1960s until the 1980s.

"I started them in wrestling way back," said Blegen, now retired and living in Alexandria. "And I tell them little things just about every time I see them wrestle."

In the winter, the Reinsma household is split between wrestling and basketball. Elissa's twin brother Matt and seventh-grade brother Mitch play basketball, as did their father. That means their parents, Brad and Becky, see a lot of both sports.

But this week, it's all wrestling all the time on the biggest stage in Minnesota.

"It's going to be nuts, totally nuts," Becky said.

Elissa will take a record of 32-8 into a first-round match against sophomore Jacoby Bergeron (39-2) of Thief River Falls at 8 p.m. Bergeron is ranked third in Class 2A at 103, and Reinsma is No. 7.

No matter what happens this week, Reinsma has already earned the respect of the wrestling world. She placed third in the section tournament last year, one spot away from a state berth. Wabasso coach Gary Hindt, who has been coaching for 41 years, has watched Reinsma's progress.

"A couple of years ago it was, 'We're gonna beat the girl,'" he said. "Right now I think the boys respect her just like another wrestler, because she's proven herself. She can wrestle. She's made a believer out of me and everybody else."

The road has not always been smooth. Elissa began wrestling in first grade, and there were some ugly scenes along the way. At a tournament in South Dakota a couple years ago, she was winning against a boy when the opponent's mother came running out of the stands, yelling at Elissa.

"That's probably the worst I've seen," Justin Reinsma said. "But later the mom apologized to Elissa. She doesn't let it get to her. She does a good job of handling that, and she knows she's got the team behind her."

Elissa shrugs off questions about how she has been treated.

"Everyone's been great," she said. "You get a couple people here and there who are kind of mean about it, but everyone's basically supported me."

That includes her female friends.

"I'm used to it, growing up with her on the team," said Murray County Central junior Brittney Fischer, a wrestling cheerleader. "But I'm sure it's weird for other people, especially if they've never experienced having to wrestle a girl.

"She says it's frustrating sometimes when the boys don't want to wrestle her because they don't want to lose to a girl, and it's hard for the boys because it's a lose-lose situation. Either it's, 'Oh, they beat a girl,' or 'They lost to a girl.'"

In the practice room, this girl wants no favors. She works as hard as any of her teammates, and she doesn't want to be treated any differently.

"I wouldn't be here if they did that," she said.

Here, in this case, being the state tournament.

John Millea • 612-673-1705