PORT TOWNSEND — The determination was evident before Port Townsend’s Chloe Rogers even stepped foot on the wrestling mat.
“She walked up to me one day after a wrestling tournament, pointed at the mat and said she wanted to do that, she wanted to wrestle,” Redhawks coach Steve Grimm said.
“I thought, ‘Holy cow, we have something here.’
“She had fire in her eyes, and she looked determined and strong.
“There was just something in her demeanor and in her face, you knew she was going to be good.”
Rogers’ short but successful high school wrestling career was better than good. In fact, her senior year was particularly impressive.
She compiled a 33-3 record, won subregional and regional championships and finished second at state for the second straight season in the girls all-classification 140-pound final at Mat Classic XXVIII.
Rogers’ standout season also earned her the All-Peninsula MVP as determined by a poll of area coaches and the Peninsula Daily News sports staff.
An All-Peninsula-caliber swimmer, Rogers was inspired by a friend to join the wrestling team midway through her sophomore season.
“Malia Henderson had wrestled and she told me how fun it was, how good you felt about yourself after practice, and how high you could hold your head up in the halls at school,” Rogers said.
She was quickly hooked.
“I love the one-on-one aspect of wrestling,” Rogers said.
“The mistake is on you, the triumph is yours, too, if you earn it.
“And I like the adrenaline rush. I’m a competitive person.”
Rogers didn’t wrestle as a sophomore, but rolled up a 22-11 record as a junior and made a run to the girls 140-pound state championship match, winning the first-ever state match by a female Port Townsend wrestler along the way.
“My junior year, I placed second, but my goal was to just make it to state. I didn’t have high expectations,” Rogers said.
“This year I expected to win every single match and my goal was set on that gold medal, and that pushed me and made me work harder.”
Grimm said Rogers’ biggest strength is her aggressiveness.
“She’s going to beat you up out there on the mat,” Grimm said.
“She will attack from the first second of a match.”
That physicality is even more impressive when you learn Rogers is afflicted with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a group of inherited disorders that affect connective tissues like skin, joints and blood vessel walls.
“I haven’t really noticed it with my joints,” Rogers said.
“I just have some very minor symptoms; I scar easily and sometimes I get inflamed gums.”
Grimm said he had to challenge Rogers midway through the season when he saw her wrestling too passively.
“She hadn’t lost all year and she was trying not to lose to protect her undefeated season,” Grimm said
“To sit back and wrestle defensively and not lose a match doesn’t work. Her style is to get the pin or pile up the points.
“She needed to separate herself from others in competition and really move to the top tier. And she did that.
“She needed to go out and pulverize her opponents, so that going into state everybody had her on their radar. And that’s what happened.”
Rogers also has earned a wrestling scholarship to compete for the Simon Fraser University women’s team in Burnaby, B.C., which will have at least one alumna, USA’s Helen Maroulis, competing this summer at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“Ever since I was really little I’ve dreamed of going to the Olympics,” Rogers said.
“I’d watch Michael Phelps swim and he was so strong and fast that it was inspiring.”
Rogers said she’s still pursuing that youthful vision.
“It may be in a different sport, but I’m just as driven to meet that lifetime goal.”
Rogers will take her first steps on that path by representing Washington at the Fargo Nationals, the premier junior wrestling tournament in the country, this month in Fargo, N.D.
She’s learned much about herself through wrestling.
“I can accomplish and achieve more than I ever thought I could,” Rogers said.
“If you told me freshman year, ‘Go run down to the [Haller] Fountain steps, run those 10 times and run back to the high school,’ I’d have thought you were crazy.
“And [now] I can finish that and be back and ready to wrestle.”
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-452-2345, ext. 57050 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
