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San Jose Mercury News 4/4/2000
Del Mar sophomore Melissa Moore placed second in the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association National High School Championships held March 25-26 in Lake Orion, Mich. Moore had 19 other competitors in her 106-pound class. Moore won her first match by injury default, then pinned a Wisconsin state runner-up and the Massachusetts state champ before losing 8-4 in the final to a Kansas wrestler. There were 256 participants from 36 states in the tournament. Other local wrestlers who fared well were Half Moon Bay's Sara Fulp-Allen, who took third place at 106 pounds, and San Mateo's Helaina Day, who placed fourth at 137 pounds.
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'Worm' squirms out of problems
By JAMAL THALJI
© St. Petersburg Times, January 28, 2000
ZEPHYRHILLS -- Sometimes Chester Rathburn cannot stand to see his little sister wrestle.
Don't get him wrong. It has nothing to do with any old-fashioned notions of chivalry. The Bulldogs' stellar heavyweight has long since gotten used to seeing younger sibling Nicole "Nikki" Rathburn on the mat, grappling against bigger, stronger males for the past two seasons.
It's just that whenever he watches his sister wrestle, he cannot stand to see her shoulder blades touch behind her back; or to see her torso twist one way and her hips swing impossibly in the opposite direction; or to see her bent backward and not even break a sweat; or watch both of her shoulders dislocate on command as she squirms out of a wrestling hold.
"It's weird watching her," he said. "The things she can do on the mat. The way her body can twist and bend. Sometimes I get queasy just watching it."
And therein lies her secret. For while female wrestlers are no longer a rare idiosyncrasy in the sport and are becoming more common every year, they still have a ways to catch up to the strength, size and skill-level of males. What Rathburn has done is utilized a strength that few other wrestlers can boast of, an almost rubber-like flexibility that has turned her into one of Pasco County's great escape artists.
"My parents called me the "worm' when I was little," she said. "They said I could squirm out of anything."
It was an ability she put on display in front of an amazed crowd at this past weekend's Pasco County wrestling championships as Rathburn escaped attempts to pin her again and again.
"Some of them came up and congratulated me," she said, "and told me to keep at it. They said I lasted a lot longer than a guy would have wrestling against them."
Sometimes her ability even leaves her coach at a loss for words.
"I cannot explain what she does," Zephyrhills coach Kevin Epifanio said. "All I know is that she is super, super flexible and double-jointed. And in this sport, that is a great advantage. If she had the muscle to go along with her flexibility, you would start to see her win some matches."
Which is the problem female wrestlers often encounter: beating the males. Rathburn, for example, stands just 5 feet 5 and weighs 135 pounds. She wrestles at 140, where she is 1-7 this season.
Her lone victory is a forfeit, though rarely has she been pinned. Her most telling statistic is 17, which is the team-high for escapes this year.
Rathburn, a sophomore, dreams of one day being a district champion and a state qualifier. For now, though, she is content to hone her skills, knowing that for all the advantage her flexibility gives her on defense, she needs to build her offensive skills, practicing her takedowns and pinning moves.
One day soon, she said, simply surviving matches won't be good enough for her. One day, she hopes to start winning matches for the teammates who have so easily accepted her as one of the guys.
"I know I don't have as much strength as the guys do," she said. "I can't just go out there and pin them. But I know I can learn from my mistakes. I know I can keep getting better. I just want to do the best I can."
Her lack of strength hardly makes her a liability, Epifanio said.
"In a tough match, we can put her on the mat," he said, "and know that even though she isn't going to win, she isn't going to get pinned, either. We're not going to lose those points. It's a part of our strategy."
Rathburn got the wrestling bug as an eighth-grader, watching her brother wrestle for the 'Dogs.
"He's taught me everything I know," she said. "I look up to him. One day I'm going to fill his shoes, and they're pretty big shoes to fill."
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