On Aug. 16, Amanda Taecker left the Santa Maria Valley to attend CSU Fresno. She was a crucial component of Pioneer Valley’s State Champion lineup, and her move away from the area is a blow to local girls’ wrestling.
Taecker’s wrestling career started three years ago when she competed alongside the Righetti High School men’s team, but it wasn’t until the summer before her senior year that she decided to wrestle for Pioneer Valley.
“It was a sport that I had never played as a team,” she explained. “I’d played many other team sports, and I wanted to try something new.”
Taecker reminisced about a particularly memorable wrestling moment: “There was one match where this one girl that I was wrestling was 40 pounds heavier than I was. She was ahead in points, but I tossed her out of the ring, which hurt her pretty badly, and I pinned her for the win. The sweetest part of the win was that it was a form of revenge; she had beaten me in the last tournament, but the next time we wrestled, I was the one that beat her.”
In her first tournament, Taecker received second place. In all of her subsequent tournaments, she placed fourth or better. At State Finals, she wrestled into sixth place, helping her team’s championship win.
Taecker’s excellent wrestling record didn’t go unnoticed. A university in Missouri had expressed interest in her superb athletic ability and offered her a large scholarship in return for wrestling. She declined the offer, however, and accepted CSU Fresno’s offer so she could be close to her friends and family. Taecker plans on joining a club in Fresno to feed her passion for wrestling.
This article appears in Aug 20-27, 2009.