As senior Ellen Wu walked into her AP Government and Economics class taught by Kirk Abe in November, she brought up the idea of joining the wrestling team to Abe, last year’s assistant coach.

“Throughout high school, I’ve always wanted to wrestle, so when I got Mr. Abe for AP Government and Economics he convinced me to start going to open mat practices,” Wu said.

After attending the pre-season training sessions and practicing wrestling with the rest of the team, Wu decided to join. She and sophomore Carolyn Ma are the two girls on the team.

While Wu was at first slightly intimidated by joining a male-dominated sports team, she has learned to become comfortable with the sport. With intense conditioning every practice, Wu has learned basic but essential skills to wrestling such as the sweep singles and doubles.

“After we get comfortable with those skills, we do a lot of situational practices where I learn to apply the skills from training to a real wrestling match,” Wu said.

In order to prepare for competitions, Ma and Wu usually practice wrestling against the boys on the team, a task that Wu deems a “good challenge.”

“I actually really like wrestling guys more since they are usually more aggressive, which helps for tournament preparation,” Wu said.

Though Wu and Ma are the only girls on the team, Wu admits that the coaches treat them the same as the rest of the team, as if they “were one of the guys.” The constant encouragement from head coach Jose Gamez and the rest of the team is helping Wu.

“During all these intense practices, the coaches expect just as much from us as they do from the boys,” Wu said. “But they are also there to support us since we don’t know as many skills as the rest of the team does.”

Wu’s goals for this season include placing at tournaments and, ultimately, receiving medals at competitions for her hard work.

“My number one goal is just to become comfortable wrestling and to put myself out there, especially since it is my final year of high school,” Wu said.