Historically, wrestling is a boys sport.
“Back when you competed with boys you had no option, if you wanted to wrestle you were with the boys, ” said Nixa senior Brenya Crahan.
But these days, it’s a sport for girls to shine too. It’s something Brenya has known all along. The two-time state champ is ranked first in Missouri and 14th in the nation in her weight class.
“She deserves those things,” said Nixa Assistant Wrestling Coach Josh Downing. “She’s always here working. She deserves everything she gets, I’ve told her that for a long time. You always get what you deserve and sometimes it has been losses and she deserved those losses too.”
But losses are hard to come by these days as she has pinned every single opponent so far this season.
“I’ll get out there and I will immediately take them down to pin them,” Brenya said.
Brenya has been so dominant, that many of those matches don’t even pass the one-minute mark.
“Our coaches will kind of make me work a little bit, but that’s my main goal is to get a few takedowns and a pin in the first period,” Brenya said.
“She’s wrestling longer than what she could because we as coaches force her to get more takedowns and make her wrestle longer in matches,” Brenya said. “We need her to get mat time and work on some things so when we get to these higher level tournaments and has to wrestle these nationally ranked girls and she has only wrestled two minutes of mat time.”
That extra work has not only made Brenya a great wrestler but a great teacher. She and some teammates have helped teach coach Downing’s fifth and sixth graders in gym class.
“It was definitely impactful because you see not only these little boys, but these little girls all enjoying it and they’re like oh I want to wrestle,” Brenya said.
“She is just a good leader, she wants to give back, she wants girls to wrestle, so it’s not like I had to drag her out there,” Downing said. “I’m like hey do you want to help me come teach wrestling to some fifth graders and she is like absolutely.”
It’s Brenya’s chance to help the next generation of Eagles off the mat and onto the podium.
