Two girls help blaze a trail on mat at C.H. West

Joelle Simms insists she has thick skin. And she has to.

But it was hard not to notice a little fire in her eyes when she recalled a recent encounter her mother had had with another parent.

"Someone actually came up to my mom and said, 'How can you as a parent let your daughter wrestle like that against guys?' " Simms said. "Both of my parents are completely supportive of it. You just wish other people could be as open-minded. There doesn't seem to be an in-between. Most people either think it's great, or they hate it."

There might come a day - and depending on whom you talk to, that day might come sooner than later - when the two girls competing for starting spots on the Cherry Hill West varsity wrestling team aren't such an oddity.

West coach Zack Semar sees a trend that's pointing increasingly toward girls' high school wrestling leagues. "In the last 10 years, girls' involvement has grown 100-fold," he said.

But until that day comes, West wrestlers Simms, a senior, and Gabby Falabella, a junior, are linked even as their paths to the sport came from polar-opposite directions.

"If anything, we hope we can encourage other girls to go out for wrestling," Falabella said. "I think it's a great thing for females to learn - not only for self-defense but just for conditioning and for life in general. It keeps you well-rounded."

Five years ago, Falabella - completely contrasting Simms, who was a cheerleader and on the dance team before joining the wrestling team - took up jujitsu and fell in love with fighting.

"My parents were going through a divorce at the time," said Falabella, who wrestles in the 113-pound weight class. "I was really upset about everything, and those classes are really what kind of saved me. It got my mind off everything. It was great. It was a way to get out anger and frustration."

Now, Falabella, who competes in jujitsu against both genders, aspires to be an ultimate fighter. She already trains to do so although, legally, she can't fight until she's 17 years old. The need that mixed martial artists have for a grappling background is part of what pushed Falabella into wrestling in her sophomore year.

Her father also dabbled in mixed martial arts, and encouraged her to try it.

"Plus, I transferred to Cherry Hill West from Kingsway when I was a sophomore," Falabella said. "So it was a way to make friends. And it really worked out."

Wrestling runs in Simms' family. She grew up watching her cousins and brother in the sport and said she always felt a calling toward it. But, instead, Simms participated on dance teams, starting when she was a toddler. She was on West's cheerleading team, too.

But Simms will tell you that something about performing in those activities never really felt right.

"My personality is suited to wrestling," said Simms, who wrestles at 126 pounds. "To go into a room with my hair in a bun and makeup on to go dance, that was never me. I danced since I was two years old and, really, it was never me.

"But it was a hard decision for me to give up my varsity spot of three years on the dance team. But wrestling is something that I've always wanted to do and I just realized that this is my last year - it's my last chance. I have to do it.

"And I love it. If I could go back and change it, I would have wrestled since freshman year."

"They laugh," Simms said.

Falabella smiled and, almost on cue, echoed: "Oh yeah, they laugh."

Both said the snickers they hear when they're on the mat have never come from their own team.

"There has never been a guy on our team who has put me down, ever," Falabella said. "Everybody has been really accepting. And honestly, I wasn't expecting that."

But the same can't be said for some opponents who might need to be desensitized to the idea of grappling with a girl.

So what's the best way to hasten that process? According to Semar, the answer is simple: Let them wrestle.

"Once they start wrestling, other wrestlers realize: 'Hey, these girls are for real. They're coming after me. They want to pin me,' " he said. "They realize that they have to defend themselves."

Simms actually did pin her first opponent this season in a JV match against Shawnee.

And, according to Falabella, there are advantages to wrestling as a girl.

"Flexibility," said Falabella, who is practicing with the team but cannot compete in matches while she works to complete a class. "Really, flexibility helps so much. Girls tend to be a little more flexible than guys. It really, really does help. I can't stress that enough."

Regardless, both girls are content that they have to work much harder than their male counterparts, both physically and in catching up on the learning curve with others who have been wrestling their entire lives.

Not to mention that "no guy wants to lose to a girl," Simms said.

Semar praised the pair's work ethic and competitive nature, and said they get no special treatment from him.

Falabella and Simms are clearly in great shape. And each has the kind of natural athletic build often seen in the sport.

"They both took to the wrestling easily," Semar said. "With some kids, it does seem natural. They both just have those natural movements. They're athletes."

Semar is in his fourth year as the team's head coach. His father, John, a South Jersey Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee, coached the team in the 1980s. John Semar is currently an assistant at West.

The head coach said he and his staff couldn't be happier to have girls on the team - an attitude they've cultivated in their other wrestlers.

"Wrestling is really an inclusion sport," Zack Semar said. "It includes a lot of different types of people, a lot of different backgrounds. So as long as kids are willing to put the time in, work hard, and want to improve, they're welcomed on the team."

The coach is one of the biggest supporters of the girls' lofty goals.

Falabella and Simms simply brush off any negative reactions they sometimes get from outsiders because, as they see it, they're helping to blaze a trail.

But more immediately, both can't seem to take their attention off the wall in the Cherry Hill West wrestling room - the one that lists every varsity wrestler in the school's history. The one composed of nothing but male names.

"We want our names on that wall," Semar said.

Added Falabella: "I don't even care if I only get one varsity match. I want to be on that wall."

Semar said emphatically that the goals, which entail beating a teammate in a wrestle-off for a spot on varsity, are realistic. If it happens, it would serve as another significant chapter in a story that might be just beginning.