It was just Danni Schulz and her parents representing in red Saturday, March 7, at the All-Girls Club National Wrestling Tournament.
That was just fine with the Cottonwood Middle School eighth-grader, who bookended her season with runner-up finishes at Camp Verde High School after taking home first-place medals from matches the year before.
“The boys, they kept on saying I wouldn’t be able to make it because I was a girl,” she said. “I’m like, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m better than you are, so I’m going to go do it.’”
Schulz handled her first two opponents but lost the 155-pound girls championship on points, finishing second in the Southwest at her weight class.
“I was a couple of pounds over 167, but I was dropping weight a lot,” Schulz said. “I was working out a lot more because it’s going to be harder in high school.”
Schulz, who also seeks to balance swimming and track with wrestling in the winter at MUHS, would meet little administrative resistance when she initially professed her interest in being one of the boys and taking up the sport.
The real resistance started, of all places, at home.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, March 11, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
