ETHS girls wrestling: Set for best season yet on mat

Ten years ago, no one imagined Evanston would emerge as an annual contender to finish in the state’s Final Four in field hockey. But it happened. Five years ago, skeptics wouldn’t have thought the Wildkits could get to the Elite Eight so fast in flag football. But it happened. Evanston’s female athletes proved the so-called experts wrong in both sports. Now, it might be the wrestlers’ turn. The growth of girls wrestling in the state of Illinois continues to trend upward and the Kits should field their strongest overall team yet when the 2026-27 season opens Saturday at the Niles West Invitational tournament. With a turnout of 36 girls — the best in ETHS history — Coach Rudy Salinas won’t have any trouble filling out a lineup in all 14 weight classes. That quantity will include plenty of quality grapplers, led by heavyweight Ola Fajimolu and 125-pounder Samantha Gipson, who represented Team Illinois at the USA Wrestling Nationals this past summer. In fact, the veteran head coach can envision a lineup where at least half of the hopefuls have a chance to be all-conference-type performers and/or potential state qualifiers. “We’ll need some breakthrough seasons, but with the young girls we have back — and a couple of outstanding freshmen — it looks like at least half of our lineup will have state-caliber girls,” Salinas said. “The sport is growing in Illinois and now the girls are getting the attention they’re due. We’re excited about the fact that the IHSA [Illinois High School Association] has added more regionals and sectionals [same as the boys state tournament series, instead of a 40-school sectional]. “We have three girls who won world championships from Illinois and Illinois females are known now all over the world. Team USA won the world championship a couple of years ago, and now there’s also a Division I national tournament in college. “We’re providing opportunities for them to play a contact sport, like field hockey and flag football, so I’m not surprised that now we’re starting to get the [high turnout] numbers. Time will tell if we’ll have sustainability with those numbers.” Evanston’s turnout includes 15 freshmen, an indication that wrestling has become one of those “word of mouth” sports that girls will try because their neighbors or relatives or classmates in junior high, are also interested in competing. And at ETHS they have role models like Fajimolu and Gipson, who along with former teammate Oyetola Jacobs, represented Team Illinois in Fargo, North Dakota, at the highest level of the sport for teenagers. Jacobs transferred to Niles West this fall, but Fajimolu and Gipson are juniors who will anchor a solid lineup and will benefit from the experience they gained over the summer. Those nine days of training and competing in Fargo left Fajimolu and Gipson even hungrier after the pair combined for 49 wins last year. They both finished 0-2 at Nationals but the experience counted for more than the won-loss record. “Being at Nationals was kinda overwhelming,” Fajimolu admitted. “It was hard, hard, hard. We practiced twice a day and I lost 11 pounds with all that practice. I found out there’s a lot more to it than high school wrestling. This is just the tip of the iceberg. “I made a lot of new friends there and, for me, the highlight was all of the team-building we did there AFTER practice. I liked the structure and I liked that they made us get to know each other from all the different cities in Illinois. I got to wrestle against the national champ — she taught me some freestyle stuff — and now I can’t wait to see all of those girls again when the season starts.” Fajimolu won’t be able to wrestle Saturday because of a recent scooter accident that left her out of action with a bruised knee. But the experience at Nationals means she’s aiming even higher when it comes to her personal goals this season. “My first goal is to place at State,” she said. “I want to be on that awards podium.” Gipson, a two-time all-conference standout already in her young mat career, also called it an eye-opening experience. “The Nationals were very challenging to me,” Gipson explained. “It was a good experience for me to see what kind of competition I’d be up against, what kind of physiques they had. I saw how big wrestling can be for me, and the opportunities that are there for me if I work hard. “Now I’m aiming higher now than I ever have. I saw that I deserved to be there. I saw that those girls aren’t different from me, that I just have to try my best to work a little harder, focus a little better, and really believe in myself.” Gipson said she isn’t surprised that the ETHS wrestling room is getting more crowded every year. “I think a lot of girls are open to trying new things, and it’s their ambition to be in a hard sport like wrestling,” she said. “They want to test themselves. They’re aspiring to challenge themselves in ways they didn’t think about before.” “In my 30 years as a head coach, I’ve never had more than one girl represent our community at Nationals, so this is really exciting to me,” Salinas noted. “Getting three of them to Nationals is a huge deal. It’s exciting because they’re back this year, it’s exciting because of their buy-in, and it’s exciting because there’s such an opportunity for growth.” The veteran coach is hoping for breakthrough seasons from junior Aileen Trejo (130 pounds), sophomore Lena Rathjen (120) and junior Isabella Vernon (team high 27 victories at 155). Two incoming freshmen, Ryu Martinez and Lucia Cruz, are expected to make an immediate impact at 100 pounds and 135, respectively. Martinez is the daughter of ETHS assistant coach Antonio Martinez and both she and Cruz qualified for the Illinois Kids Wrestling Federation state tournament as eighth-graders. “They’ve both come in already looking like varsity wrestlers,” Salinas said. “They know what to do, and they’re ready to compete.” Other grapplers to watch include sophomore Nikora Malcolm at 190, sophomore Matilda Sales at 140, senior Leticia Gomez at 135, sophomore Jayne Diversiev at 115, sophomore Danna Gonzalez at 105 and sophomore Michelle Manalo at 110. Related Stories