By Kristina Garcia

Rocky Point girls wrestling brought back more than just shiny new armor with them from Albany last week – memories and preparation proved to be even more valuable. 

And on Monday night, The Lady Eagles faced off in the first ever official Section XI Girls Wrestling Championship hosted at Comsewogue High School, where sophomore Lily Blenk and freshman Julianna Hernandez took first place in their weight class. They will now compete in the first official New York State Public High School Athletic Association Girls Wrestling Championship on February 27 in Albany. The finalists also included Ava Capogna and Zoey Hernandez.

“I’m very proud of the entire team this whole season . . . progress in this sport is not always linear and it will include some highs and lows, but the important thing is to keep your head up and keep going on the right path. They all have etched their names into the history books of girls wrestling forever and they should be very proud of their progress as wrestlers, and more importantly the type of people that they are,” said head coach Anthony DeVito.

After their win in Albany, The NYS Journeyman Girls Dual Meet Wrestling Champions gathered Saturday morning to enter yet another week of intensive training for the Monday tournament. “They came together for one cause. The cause is the team,” said head coach Anthony DeVito. “WIT stands for whatever it takes, so whatever it takes for the team and the family.”

Senior captains Bridget Myers and Capogna touched on the importance of both physical and mental preparation heading into such an elite competition. “There were high-energy practices where we couldn’t stop moving, talking, and getting our mindset right, all while making sure that we knew what we had to do to win,” said Myers. “We were doing a lot of talking about our mindset, doing a lot of stuff with the coaches,” said Capogna. “We were working on a lot of technique and making sure it was perfect for when we went to states.”

As the team headed to the mats to compete in their individual duals at states, they brought with them belief. “By the time we were there, they understood that it was their dual meet tournament, they would take someone down and they were looking for points right away,” said coach DeVito. 

“We were the loudest team,” said senior Clover Van Der Velden. Rocky Point girls wrestling left their mark in Albany after defeating Phoenix 39-25, Minisink Valley 45-17, and Shenendehowa 38-18; exemplifying discipline, focus, and control over the course of the tournament. Junior captain Angelica Smiech was the first dual of the day, setting the tone for Rocky Point’s championship run. “For a lot of people, including myself, you definitely wrestle more crazy when you’re practicing, but when you get out on the mat you’re so nervous with all the mental challenges,” said Smiech. “I knew I needed to win for our team, so I wrestled for more than me, and now I feel like I can do that again,” she said.

Ranked 17th in the country in her weight class, Julianna Hernandez has made history continuously for this Rocky Point team in just her freshman season. As a seventh grader, Julianna became the first girl to win the league wrestling title in Long Island against boys. A big team goal for this group is for the young ones to build from this experience for the future, and coach DeVito has a great deal of trust they will.

“It brought the team so much closer. We’re all from different schools and don’t always practice together, but when we did, I realized – wow, we are a family. We all put in work to achieve this goal. These are friends I’m going to have forever,” said Van Der Velden. “The support, it was like a family, it was amazing, and when we found out we won everyone was basically crying, it was insane, I will definitely remember that forever,” said Blenk.

Kristina Garcia is a reporter with The SBU Media Group, part of Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism’s Working Newsroom program for students and local media.