Marisa Roth makes history as a WIAA Girls State Wrestling Champion
BROOKFIELD, Wis. (BVM) – Marisa Roth tries to enter every wrestling match with the same mentality.
“Every match, the circle is the same,” Roth said. “I know how to wrestle, I just do what I know.”
It may be why Roth wasn’t paying attention to the fact that she was getting closer and closer to making history during the first ever WIAA Girls State Wrestling Tournament in La Crosse, Wisconsin. That didn’t hit until after she had pinned her opponent in the first period of the championship match that made her Wisconsin’s first 138-pound girls wrestling state champion.
“It felt really good,” Roth said. “For me, every match is kind of the same and it didn’t really set in how important that whole event was until afterwards so that was a pretty cool feeling.”
Roth went undefeated in a senior season in which she only had four points scored against her. Being able to finish her impressive season with a state title was a special moment for her and her family as she dedicated her state championship to her mom.
“Just having it in my senior year was pretty cool to see that we got to live the same dream as the boys,” Roth said. “It’s not 100% there yet but I know it will just continue to grow and turn into something bigger.”
Roth would know. She has been doing her part to get the WIAA to sanction girls wrestling since she started high school and although she was happy when the news came out that it was going to happen her senior year, there were some mixed emotions.
“It was kind of exciting I guess but part of me was like, ‘OK finally, this should’ve happened a while ago,’” Roth said.
In fact, talks around sanctioned girls wrestling in Wisconsin had been going since Roth first got involved in wrestling as a sixth grader. At that time, Roth thought she would be able to wrestle in girls wrestling as a freshman but that didn’t happen. So Roth got to work trying to make it happen.
“Ever since I started wrestling I was pulled into that, ‘Oh we still don’t have it? OK what can I do to push it along,’” Roth said.
She would write letters, her parents would write letters. She got her teammates to write letters and the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation (WWF) girls team did videos all in an attempt to get the WIAA to add girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport.
It was a grueling process that Roth and the wrestling community had to go through to make this past season possible and although it was long overdue, Roth is glad that it was her that had to go through this process.
“I think about the young athletes that are kind of looking up to me,” Roth said. “I would rather go through this just to make the path easier for the girls coming up after me. Having a girl come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for coaching me today.’ That just makes everything worth it.”
That and her love for the sport of wrestling. Up until sixth grade, Roth had been a cheerleader but that year she decided to try as many sports as she could so that heading into high school she knew what sport she wanted to focus on. For her first winter sport, she chose wrestling and that was that.
“Right when I started, something just kind of clicked,” Roth said. “It was like, ‘OK I’m meant to do this. I’m not good, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing but I know this is what I want to do,’ and that just continued to grow.”
It grew into a love for the sport that will be there for the rest of her life. Roth, like many others who love the sport, is an amazing student of the game. Constantly trying to hone the mental and physical skills that success in the sport demands.
“I love the physical aspect of it. It’s just you on the mat, it’s just you in the circle,” Roth said. “It takes your mind, your body and at the end of the day, nobody knows everything about the sport, you are always learning.’
Roth is still learning and will continue to do so next year in college when she attends school at Northern Michigan University, a school she chose because of its wrestling team and engineering program. Roth wanted to be able to focus on both while in college and NMU gave her the best opportunity to do that.
There will also be the opportunity for wrestling after college as well. Tony Deanda, her coach at Northern Michigan, has experience with the Olympic process and there is an Olympic training facility nearby.
She isn’t certain that is where her career will take her, but Roth is prepared for anything and trusts that the sport she loves will guide her in the right direction.
“I just want to go as far as I can,” Roth said. “Wherever the sport takes me I’ll go.”
