On Jan. 19, Kaleis Vitug (11) walked into the Westview gym for her first wrestling match on the varsity team and saw countless familiar faces: her friends in the stands and her teammates by the mat. She felt her nerves and adrenaline rush through her body, thinking about how far she’s come since her first match.

On Dec. 15 at San Pasqual High School, Vitug competed for the first time at an all-girls cluster. As the only girl representing Westview, she didn’t have anyone to huddle with before the game or anyone to cheer her on during her rounds, when some girls on the San Pasqual team invited her to hang out with them, and she ended the night with a new group of friends. Instead, she was only able to watch the wrestlers from other schools support one another. Being around a large group of female wrestlers made Vitug wonder what it would be like to feel this sense of solidarity in her own team at Westview.

After doing Muay Thai for the past five years outside of school, Vitug decided that she wanted to push herself out of her comfort zone. She hoped to join a Westview sports team before she graduated, and she found her way to the wrestling team.

“I heard about the team last year, but I didn’t want to join because I was scared,” Vitug said. “I didn’t know how judgy [the other wrestlers] would be, or what type of guys they would be, but they have all been nice to me since day one.”

When Vitug trained at her local gym doing Muay Thai, she felt a strong unity with the other female athletes she was training with. However, she didn’t find this as the only female wrestler on the Westview team.

“When I first went to the first practice, the first thing that went through my head was ‘I hope there’s [another] girl there,’ [but] the only girls there [were] the managers. I was scared of most of [the team] and it took me a while to warm up to them. [For the first few weeks], the only people I would talk to were the coaches.”

Since starting practice in October, Vitug has spent every day for two hours after school in the wrestling room. However, it wasn’t until several weeks later that she finally felt comfortable wrestling with the male wrestlers. With every practice, she got used to being around her other teammates. Vitug said when walking school, she’d pass by some of her teammates and they’d stop and talk to her, and from time to time when she messed up a move they would come around and give her advice. She had been used to sparring with guys in Muay Thai, but she said that wrestling was entirely different because there was more skin-to-skin contact for long periods of time. In practice, all of her teammates were well over her weight class by nearly 20 pounds, and she was put in many uncomfortable positions like getting pinned down to the point where she couldn’t sit up, and it took a while to get used to that close contact with other guys.

Despite these challenges, Vitug ultimately decided to push through and keep going through the season. She said that her main motivation was gaining the experience of participating in a high school sports season and having a nice break from Muay Thai. In that first match, the rest of Vitug’s teammates wished her good luck but were unable to make it because they had practice.

“It felt really awkward because I was just there [by myself],” Vitug said. “At first, I didn’t mind it because I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of them, but at the same time I kind of needed [support].”

She was still able to make friends with the other girls on the San Pasqual wrestling team, who were able to help keep her head in the game and keep her mind off of not having her other teammates with her. This unity with the girls made Vitug yearn for a female community in the Westview wrestling team.

Despite the worries that she started the season with, Viug said that competing as a Westview athlete has been an invaluable experience.

“I am proud of pushing myself to go out of my comfort zone, even though it hasn’t lived up to exactly how I expected it to go,” Vitug said. “I was able to make some new friends out of it and gain a new high school experience.”