Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

CHELSEA – Standing on the mat on Friday, Jan. 17 at Chelsea High School, Heather Butler got to experience another first in a trailblazing career full of them: her first home tournament.

The Chelsea Hornets started what they hope to be a new tradition as they hosted teams from around the state of Alabama for the Chelsea Girls Invitational, rolling out the mats on Friday night to give the girls a stage of their own ahead of the boys tournament on Saturday.

And while the Hornets only had Butler to represent them, it was very much a special and historic night for the burgeoning girls wrestling program.

“It was great,” Chelsea wrestling coach Cole Corkren said. “We’ve only got one girl: Heather Butler. She’s got a good chance to win state championship this year, but her winning that tournament on Friday meant a big deal to her and to the future of our program and growing the girls program at Chelsea and growing girls wrestling in the state.”

The reigning Class 7A 152-pound runner-up, Butler won the girls 167-pound division, securing a first-period pin against Carver-Birmingham’s Miqueila Vargas, a second-period pin against Pell City’s Alyssa Bullard and a first-period pin against Thompson’s Gissell Trejo to advance to the bracket stage as the top seed out of Pool A.

She then defeated Daphne’s Taliah Wade in the semifinals by a 3-0 decision to advance to the finals for a rematch against Trejo. Butler secured a pinfall win in the finals to win the division and improve to 28-3 on the season.

Butler had a large crowd of friends and family at the tournament cheering her on as she took the mat in her own hometown.

Corkren saw the impact that Butler had on her friends and other people watching as she showcased the best parts of the sport of wrestling and even started to get the wheels turning in their heads about joining her on the mat.

The latter part is what makes Corkren optimistic that Butler and this tournament will help grow girls wrestling even more as it continues to explode exponentially around Alabama.

“We only have one girl, but our one girl had maybe 10, 15 friends show up and they were cheering her on every match and talking to them, their comments were like, it wasn’t what they expected,” Corkren said. “They really enjoyed watching it and you could kind of see them shifting from, ‘No way I would ever do this,’ to kind of like, ‘Hey, I might maybe do this in the future,’ so it is really good for the girls that wrestled Friday to show other girls what it’s about, and especially a lot of local Birmingham teams being there and their friends being able to show up and watch, that was really good for growth.”

Speaking of local Birmingham teams, the Thompson Warriors won five division titles at the Chelsea Invitational to keep their momentum going in the final weeks before sectionals.

Kaydence Seigler won the girls 116-pound division after pinning Hewitt’s Kaylee Maynor in the finals at the 1:47-mark.

Jordan Weltzin took first in the girls 122-pound division with a first-period fall and second-period fall in the bracket competition.

Ana Nguyen won the girls 187-pound division with a 5-0 record on the night, including a pinfall victory in the first, second and third periods and two 16-0 technical falls.

Aenaya Vines won the girls 140-pound division after winning all four of her Pool A matches before pinning Daphne’s Annabella Harris at the 1:37-mark of the final placement match.

Elizabet Rosenstiel took home first place in the girls 147-pound division after going 5-0 in her matches with three first-period pins and two first-period technical falls.

With some of the best wrestlers in the state showcasing their skills at Chelsea, Corkren said it was a high level of competition throughout the night. He hopes to maintain that level of quality as the tournament expands in future years.

“It felt much a like sectionals tournament almost, especially the level competition that was there, so we’ll try to keep that in the future,” Corkren said. “There (were) a lot of teams that we had to turn away because we didn’t have room, so it makes it more of the invitational environment and intense competition, and (we’re) looking to get more teams maybe like Daphne that could stay the night in the future and girls come on Friday and boys on Saturday.”

Corkren also wants to keep the two-day structure because for him, it’s all about elevating girls wrestling by giving the sport its own space to shine, separate from the boys.

He believed separating the genders made the girls event even more special since that isn’t the norm around the region, and he hopes that it continues to elevate the experience into one that makes teams want to come back.

“We’ll keep that same format just so the whole team can wrestle, and having the girls on their own day really made it a great experience, because a lot of places you go, the girls would be on one mat, and it’ll be the same day as the boys, so we really want to keep girls the same day, and that way they can have their own tournament and their own experience,” Corkren said.