- December 26, 2024
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Stepping onto the wrestling mat, Shania Gowan carried a mixed bag of emotions into her match.
It was the quarterfinals — her opening match — at the Ottawa University EZ Flex Invitational in Kansas, and the Missouri Baptist University redshirt freshman was facing the No. 2-ranked Jennifer Curry in the 170-pound bracket.
Gowan hadn’t wrestled since 2019, thanks in part to a lower-lumbar injury and difficulties with transcripts her first year. But now, after those struggles, she was cleared to get back to her sport.
“It was my first tournament coming back, so it was kind of nerve-wracking because I hadn’t wrestled on a mat live with somebody else in so long, so my nerves got the best of me,” said Gowan, a graduate of Dr. Phillips. “But it was an eye-opener, because I needed that — I needed that invitational. I needed to wrestle, and I needed that drive to keep pushing. I liked it — I loved it.”
She lost that match in a close 4-2 decision but went on to win her next three matches — without yielding a point to her competitors — which included defeating Hannah Dickinson (Ottawa), 10-0, No. 9 Kiya Jones (Baker), 10-0, and Jennifer Curry by forfeit. Gowan picked up a third-place finish.
The state champion from Dr. Phillips wasn’t the only former Panther who stood out. Sophomore Karoline Ortiz and freshman Jessica Corredor rounded out a trio of top performances. Corredor, in her first tournament as a Spartan, went 3-1 and finished in third place at 116 pounds; meanwhile, Ortiz went 3-0 and won the title in the 130-pound division.
“Since we came from being with Coach Kirwyn (Adderley) in high school over there, our mindset was always to dominate — it’s to not just win, it’s to dominate,” Ortiz said. “And I feel like that has transferred with us to college.”
The Dr. Phillips trio just didn’t happen to land at Missouri Baptist out of circumstance.
Spartans head coach Brian Jackson — a former All-American wrestler at N.C. State — has had a long standing relationship with Adderley.
“He’s felt at ease sending some of his girls to me — he knows my intentions and my wrestling knowledge, so it’s a good pipeline,” Jackson said. “It’s important that they enjoy their experience under these circumstances — I would hate to be a freshman who started college during this time during a pandemic, but we have to do what we have to do. I’ve been happy with the talent that we’ve gotten from Dr. Phillips.”
For the two coaches and the trio at Missouri Baptist, the transition from high school to college has been made easier thanks in part to the open-door policy that Jackson has when it comes to Adderley.
Whenever Adderley has a break, he makes time to fly out to see his former wrestlers — he was even in Kansas for the invitational. Often, he will drop by campus to help coach. It’s all about communication.
“We just make sure that we’re all on the same page,” Adderley said. “It really works out (well), because they can continue to grow and there’s no conflicts in, ‘Well, my college coach says this and my high school coach says this.’ We (Jackson and Adderley) may talk three to five times a week just to say, ‘OK, this is what I see.’”
There’s a lot to get used to when going from high school to college.
On the mat, it’s facing off against the best of the best in a sport that’s rapidly growing across the country, as well as growing in talent levels.
“It’s a little bit different because college girls here are stronger than high school girls, so I would have to switch out to having more technique because I don’t have the power yet, but I’m still working on that,” Corredor said. “To beat these girls, I would have to work on technique and more strategy going into my matches.”
Just as time is needed to prepare and adapt to life on the collegiate wrestling map, time is also needed just getting used to life on their own in a place that feels a world away from Florida. For the trio, this has been a time of great change in their lives.
“Being an adult — like having full responsibilities because you’re not at home,” Gowan said of the biggest challenges she has faced. “Basically, just growing up is difficult, but it’s going.”
The other big adjustment was the weather. Missouri is a bit colder than Florida, and there were mixed feelings about it.
Despite the cold weather — Corredor said she had gotten to see snow for the first time this past year — and the challenges on the mat, Gowan, Ortiz and Corredor have plenty of time to find themselves, Jackson said.
“They’re special,” Jackson said. “You’ve got to crawl first, then you walk, then you run, and then you start leaping, so I think it’s a progress — it’s harder these days to instill in athletes that it’s a progress and it’s a process and it takes time. So just believe in the process and then you’ll see the progress.”
