Local 8th-grader headed to national wrestling tournament after winning state championship
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IDAHO FALLS – An eighth-grade girl from Teton recently won the state wrestling championship for the middle school and junior high division and now she’s headed to a national tournament in Iowa.
Zuri Tavarez, 14, is one of 15 students across the state who will represent Idaho at the Heartland National Duels on March 29 and 30.
As she prepares for the two-day event, Zuri tells EastIdahoNews.com she’s “super excited” and “a little nervous.”
Zuri’s dad, Franklyn Tavarez, is the wrestling coach and he’s proud of his daughter’s accomplishment.
After winning the state championship, Zuri participated in the Idaho Open in Meridian last weekend, a statewide tournament that “gets as many tough Idaho wrestlers in the same gym as possible.”
During this tournament, Zuri was bumped into the 18-year-old bracket where she was wrestling high school students.
“She won that bracket, even though she was a middle-schooler,” says Franklyn.
Though Zuri participates in the girl’s wrestling division, Franklyn says she was the district champion in the boys and girls division.
“Most of my boys (on the team) don’t like wrestling girls, but for some reason, they don’t have an issue wrestling her. I think it’s because of her aggressive nature. I’ve been told by the boys, ‘We don’t see her as a girl, we see her as a monster,'” Franklyn says.
Zuri has qualified for the Idaho Open the last several years, but this is her first year going to the national tournament and Franklyn says she is very excited about it.
“She is stoked. She went around and looked for sponsors because it’s not cheap to go to nationals,” he says.
Franklyn has been the wrestling coach at South Fremont High School for many years and Zuri has grown up watching her older brothers wrestle.
Despite Franklyn’s efforts to push his daughter in a different direction, wrestling is what Zuri wanted to do.
“She would beg and cry and I thought I could outsmart her. I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll sign you up for a tournament and we’ll see how you do,” Franklyn recalls.
Zuri was only 10 at the time, and she participated in the state tournament for young girls.
“I figured they would beat the trash out of her and she would never want to do it again,” Franklyn says. “My daughter ended up placing fifth at that tournament and she was crying at the end of it.”
Thinking that Zuri’s tears were due to getting hurt, Franklyn told her that if she couldn’t handle the roughness of the sport, it probably wasn’t for her.
“I’m not crying because I lost or because I’m hurt,” Zuri said, according to Franklyn. “I’m crying because if you’d let me go to practice, I could beat every girl in here.”
That’s when Franklyn knew wrestling is what Zuri was passionate about.
She’s thrilled with the opportunity to compete at nationals.
The national tournament is a team competition, meaning entire teams compete against each other. There are no individual winners.
The thought of Zuri being undefeated at nationals is exciting to Franklyn, but more than anything, he says it’s a chance to face off against other wrestling champions across the nation.
It’s hard to say how things will turn out at this point, but Franklyn is rooting for his daughter’s team.
“Girl wrestling in Idaho is pretty new,” he says. “It could be a little rough, but I think we have some really good girls on the team this year.”
Zuri agrees and she’s hoping for another victory.