High school sophomore reflects, as 1st season for all-girls wrestling wraps up

PHOENIX (FOX 10) -- It's a sport that many think is just for the boys, but now, girls are joining in on high school wrestling.

The first season for all girls teams just wrapped up, and a Valley teen is speaking out about her experience in the sport, as well as the road to becoming a state champion.

Mia Didur, a sophomore at Centennial High School, is one of 10 state champions. Getting there took some hard work.

"My first thought was, 'wow, these boys are scary,'" Didur recounted.

That hard work wasn't only about training. Didur literally had to fight to even get matches before this year. She had to sit out of her first tournament because some boys did not want to compete against her.

"It was really nerve-wracking, and I hadn't ever gone against any of my competition before, so I didn't know what I was going to be facing on the mat," said Didur.

Now, that's all changed. This is the first wrestling season with all girls teams, and Didur had more opportunities to compete.

"We saw it kind of growing into this. I mean, we had meetings at the District Office about girl's wrestling starting, and it wasn't very well organized at the beginning. We knew we needed to get it started, and we started this big push and we put it out there to a lot of our students, and at one time we had up to 12 girls that were going to wrestle for us," said Brian Burgess, varsity wrestling coach for Centennial High School.

Coach Burgess says competitions are now more organized, but there are still ways to go to get more girls involved in the sport.

"The big thing that I need for Mia to get to that next level is to have a much larger team," said Burgess. "We get into there I believe that the state is going to grow so that there will actually be a girl's state championship, team-wise."

As girl's wrestling continues to grow, Didur is still taking it all in from becoming a state champion.

"It's pretty cool, but at the same time, representing my school at like tournaments and stuff is nerve-wracking again because if I do bad, the girl's team from my school has done bad, so it feels like its putting a lot of pressure on me, but at the same time, I'm just going out there to try and have fun."

Didur says she hopes to one day go to the Olympics, or at least the nationals. For now, however, Didur is focused on getting to college, with plans to study to become a trauma surgeon.