Female athlete competes in national wrestling competition

WANTAGE — From as far back as she can remember, Marlee Smith of Wantage has been involved in sports. It wasn't until second grade that she began to play with the boys.

"She was cheering as a cheerleader and my husband was coaching football. He was one kid short, so he turned to me and said, 'I'm putting her in,'" said Crissy Smith, Marlee's mother. "She was this little thing but a tough kid, so we threw football pads on her and she went out there and that was the end of cheerleading."

Football was the transition Marlee needed to explore another predominantly boys sport, wrestling.

"I used to play football and with a lot of boys I used to play wrestle, so I wanted to try it," Marlee said, who five years later is still wrestling for the boys Sussex Wantage Wrestling Team.

Marlee is now 13, is finishing up her seventh grade year at Sussex Middle School and along with wrestling she now plays travel soccer, travel softball and field hockey. She gave up football at the end of sixth grade because the boys were getting too big for her to compete and also because she wanted to have more time to train and concentrate on wrestling.

Crissy has always been supportive in her daughter's endeavours but as football and wrestling are very high contact sports, she did have some reservations.

"I didn’t like it, but after the first year I was OK with it," Crissy said of Marlee playing football. "She was good, she was able to keep up with the boys and she was competitive. When she said she wanted to wrestle I didn’t like it. Watching her matches made me nervous. Even to this day I still, I can’t video tape or take pictures while she's wrestling because it makes me nervous. But I am glad she stuck it out and I am glad she is still doing it."

In January Marlee won her fifth state title in wrestling from the NJ USA Girls State Wrestling Championship. She placed first place each time. In March, Marlee traveled to Michigan for the second time where she competed against 16 other girls and placed seventh. In 2011, Marlee placed second nationally.

Competing in the state and national tournaments are the only times Marlee is able to wrestle against other girls. Since there are no all girl wrestling leagues in New Jersey, Marlee along with other local girls must compete on boys teams.

Marlee doesn't mind wrestling with the boys as she says, she likes the competition. Plus this year, she placed second in the county when wrestling against boys.

"It's harder but it prepares me to wrestle better when I wrestle girls," said Marlee.

To keep up with the boys, Marlee trains three days a week with the team and then another two or three days with a trainer in Franklin. While training for all of this she is able to keep her grades up and make honor roll each marking period.

Although there are no all girls wrestling leagues in New Jersey yet, there is a Women's Division for wrestling for the state.

State Director for the Women's Division for USAW-NJ (USAWrestling-NJ), Jan Neighbor noted that there are several Sussex County girls competing including Skylar Grote, Brandi Braco from Vernon and Sierra Blasone from Sparta.

USAW-NJ is a part of USA Wrestling, the organization that sponsors and trains wrestlers for the Olympics.

"In many states many girls who wrestle start with the boys division, the youngest of which is Intermediate — seven years old," said Neighbor. "As the girls mature, the differences in their physicality become more evident and many hope to move to women only clubs, but clubs are few and far between. Others wrestle on boys' teams because they have strong skills and not much choice."

There is now a practice for the WOW (Women Only Wrestling) Club at Rider University on Saturdays. Some of the current Team New Jersey wrestlers work out there.

In most recent wrestling news Ashley Iliff from Newton — a former USAW-NJ wrestler — is now wrestling in college.

Smith hopes to continue wrestling throughout high school and maybe even into college.