Girls wrestling: Espinoza, Badon make history as St. Charles East’s first sectional qualifiers

Sofia Espinoza is only 16 years old, but she already has figured out a way to control her anger. She became a wrestler.

The St. Charles East sophomore took third at the Conant regional on Jan. 26 after pinning Prospect junior Elaine Taboada to advance to the Schaumburg sectional this weekend.

“I take all of my anger out on the mat,” Espinoza said. “I don’t know if I would be able to do that off the mat. I’d probably get in trouble. I use this as an excuse to push people around and stuff.”

Espinoza will be accompanied at the sectional by another sophomore teammate from St. Charles East. Autumn Badon also qualified after placing fifth with a win by fall over Hampshire senior Jamari Simmons during the regional in Hoffman Estates.

Regardless of how they fare moving forward, the two girls already have made history at their school, becoming the first girls sectional qualifiers during a season that almost didn’t happen.

“We decided to start in the community with the younger girls and get them hooked by the time they got to high school,” Saints coach Jason Potter said. “We pitched it to see if we could get an actual high school team going and had open gyms. We saw a little bit of interest in trying for the first time and then by the start of the season there were only two around [Espinoza and sophomore Daniella Bravo-Garcia] in the beginning.”

Once December rolled around, Espinoza had gained a partner in senior Gwen Davila who joined the squad on the suggestion of team manager Kylie McConnell.

“The manager, Kylie, was the one who told Gwen to join,” Espinoza said. “Since she was close to my weight and we would practice together, we became really, really close.”

Davila wasn’t the only newcomer to jump on after the season had started. Badon and Addison Wolf also came on board.

“Their background was growing up playing softball and Addison’s little sister is in the youth [wrestling] program and she saw her sister having success,” Potter said. “We had been trying to get [Wolf] to come out so she came out and is friends with Autumn and she figured she’d give it a shot, so we had five. So we didn’t have a full team, so we were kind of scrambling to get them competition. We struggled for a while but Batavia was running some nights and let us in late and in conference [boys] duals we brought them and tried to find matches and picked up a few.”

The Saints girls program jumped on the opportunity to host the DuKane Conference this year, a huge accomplishment for the five girls, coaching staff and school. While the Saints didn’t produce any champions, Espinoza was runner-up at 100, Wolf placed second at 140 and Badon won by fall over Lake Park freshman Elida Garcia Torres for third place at 120.

“That was the first tournament they were able to jump in on as a team,” Potter said. “It was really small but the camaraderie between the girls was great to see and they rolled into regional. A couple girls qualifying for sectionals builds a buzz and gets more and more girls interested. We had some girls come out too late for this, but they’re now interested and asking how they could become a part of it so we’re hoping to build on it.”

Badon built herself into a sectional qualifier rather quickly. Having played travel softball with Wolf, the two simply showed up one day at the wrestling room curious about arguably the fastest growing sport for girls in the country.

“Wrestling is great, but it’s very different from softball,” Badon said. “The only thing that is the same is moving your feet. I just love being competitive. It’s a really competitive sport and I fell in love with it.”

Starting a new program that’s in the same building as the Class 3A defending champion boys, who just finished an undefeated regular season in dual meets, puts the girls in a positive environment for growth and excellence.

“I’ve picked up a lot of technique being in a good program here,” Badon said. “We have a lot of good coaches who have helped me out, especially when I started to take it more serious. Every day at practice I learn something new and that’s what’s been motivating me. I’m just staying motivated and working really hard and wrestling is 95% mindset, the thinking about it.”

Espinoza introduced herself to wrestling in sixth grade but her seventh-grade year was interrupted by the pandemic.

“I did basketball for a little bit and I used to do dancing classes and I took swimming, too, but that’s when I was younger,” she said. “When I started wrestling, I didn’t really take it seriously. It was something I was doing for fun. My freshman year, I just wanted something to keep me busy and this year I’m going to sectionals so maybe I should take it serious and I’m not that bad at this.”

Humble and only 90 pounds, Espinoza usually finds herself squaring off against bigger competitors. While some would complain about the disadvantage, Espinoza is committed to learning ways to overcome it and become a better wrester.

“I’ve learned a lot of stuff since last year,” she said. “I would just throw in whatever seemed right in order to win and wouldn’t try any techniques, but this year I started throwing some stuff in like grabbing legs and stuff I didn’t know. I’m like really happy with how far I’ve come. I didn’t think I’d come this far and seeing me go to sectional I’m thinking this is kind of crazy.”