Madison was a part of the first season of girls wrestling as an OHSAA sport in 2022-23. The Blue Streaks’ Abby Forster finished sixth at 155 pounds in the regional meet, just short of the state stage. In the 2023-24 season, the Blue Streaks turned a corner with a second-place finish at the Euclid Sectional behind Columbia. They had seven of their eight wrestlers record wins in the district round with Taylor MacAdams being the first Madison girls wrestler to go to Columbus as a state alternate. This season, the Blue Streaks are aiming for more, meaning multiple wrestlers on the mat at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus. “It’s fun to watch them develop, especially in such a new sport,” head coach Jake Shirer said. “When they kind of start out, they’re all kind of on the same level. You have your outliers, like who have done it since they were little and stuff like that but it’s nice to see them get into the sport. And then start seeing success, like we have. Taylor being a state alternate last year and hopefully trying to get back to least that position this year and a couple of other girls are right there, so it’s been a fun ride.” The Blue Streaks started strongly this season. They took fourth at the Ashton Hynd, sixth at Vermilion and 10th at the Lady Longhorn tournaments. Individually, MacAdams won the Ashton Hyde and has two more podium finishes. Sarah Forster has recorded three podiums and Kora Radolovic has two podiums. Others including Adrianna Mussell, Kylee Moore and Chanity Forester have been in the top five finishers of multiple tournaments. Sarah Forster also brought the team its first sectional title a season ago. “I think it’s really exciting that we’re doing so well,” Sarah Forster said. “We set a high standard for this year and with the middle schoolers coming up, they’ll be working with us this year, that’s cool too. Like we get to help them out and see them more in season and get excited about it. And the high school team, now everybody is just putting in the work, doing what we have to do, helping each other out because we’re motivated.” The Blue Streaks are building confidence to go along with their success. While some of the wrestlers joined the team with some wrestling background, many are building from the ground up. Now three years in, Sarah Forster thinks they have the makings of a team that will have multiple state qualifiers and contend for sectional and district titles. “With everybody having good seasons, we have a really good team,” Sarah said. “We would go way to control from the mount of opponents, rather than just wrestling. We wanted to learn what works, what doesn’t. We also wanted to learn what kind of work during practice and we can try with our partners. It’s all kind of all clicking right now. Everybody is just helping each other out, learning what works for them.” One of the signs of the Blue Streaks’ growth is a lack of penalty points. Many young wrestlers suffer from locking hands and full-nelson penalties. But the Blue Streaks have stressed working on the small things on bottom. Shirer viewed their work on bottom as an issue from a season ago and harped on that this season. While he knows the team is still growing, he’s excited about the steps that the team has made with half the season left. “It’s helping them grow from that aspect of being able to learn what to do,” Shirer said. “To get up from on bottom, what to do when you see an opening on top. What it’s been like is helping them adjust to those situations, especially for us who might not have done wrestling at all before. It’s definitely a challenge because wrestling is a tough sport. Regardless of how you look at it, it’s a tough sport and as much as we wrestle as a team, it’s just as much into the individual. So the key for us is kind of just taking each individual and finding what works for them. Some people like a quad pod stand up, other girls like switches, other girls like regular stand up sorts. It’s not trying to just force them into a box.”