Valencia Kicks Tail Wrestling Boys Or Girls

By Guerin Emig
Tulsa World
Ashondra Valencia loves to shop, Utica Square if possible, and loves to dress up. She loves being 13, loves being in the thick of that social mosh pit unique to junior high school. One of her closest friends is a cheerleader and they tease each other all the time.

“Macy Carroll,” Valencia says. “She’ll jump in front of me at school and say, ‘Ashondra will you please throw me in front of everybody?’”

She wants you to throw her?

“She’ll say, ‘Wrestle me, c’mon,’ ” Valencia says.

Something else about this young lady — she will absolutely kick your tail on a wrestling mat.

Representing her Team Tulsa club, Valencia won the 121-pound division of the USA Wrestling Girls Preseason Nationals last October in Cedar Falls, Iowa. She is an eighth grader in Bixby. One of the competitors she defeated is a high school upperclassman in San Antonio.

“I think Ashondra has lost two matches so far this season,” says Ashley Broyles, Valencia’s mom who coaches her daughter at Team Tulsa along with Kyle McGill. “That’s wrestling boys and girls. Since there’s been more girls tournaments that have come up the last few years, we’ve been focusing nationally on that. On some weekends she competes against boys in their divisions. She’s 13 and wrestling 15-and-under boys.”

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