Mar 31, 2007 By Rob Burchianti 8 min read

Jordan Merschat had had enough and she decided to do something about it. “My cousins were wrestlers and they and my little brother always liked to beat up on me,” Merschat said. “So I decided to join the wrestling team so I could kick their butts.”

And so an athletic career took off.

Merschat did take up wrestling, as did her sister, Courtney Merschat, a year later. Those two, along with Brittney Kulenovic, have all gone on to excel at the sport on a national level.

The trio from Markleysburg has participated numerous times in the United States Girls’ Wrestling Association (USGWA) National Championships.

Courtney Merschat and Kulenovic made the trip to Livonia Churchill High School in Michigan again this year and are competing against the best young female wrestlers in the country this weekend.

All three have had success there in the past.

Courtney won the 2003 national championship at 83 pounds in the Elementary School Age division, pinning Kate Chapman in the second period. She also placed seventh last year at 108.

Jordan took third place at 125 in the Middle School Age division in 2003. She lost in the round of 32 at 122 last year.

“I went three four or five times,” Jordan said. “You wouldn’t think it would be that big, but it is, and it gets bigger every year. I think there must have been about 800 girls there last year.”

Jordan and Courtney are the daughters of John and Linda Merschat.

Kulenovic, the daughter of Robert and Bethany Kulenovic, sparkled in 2006 when she placed fourth at 108.

Their mentor is A.J. McMullen wrestling coach Jess “Butch” Rice, who has seen the sport grow exponentially in the past few years.

“Ever since female wrestling started, the sport has become very popular,” Rice said. “Colleges are starting up women’s wrestling programs and offering scholarships.”

Jordan Merschat is a 17-year-old junior at Uniontown Area Senior High School, while Courtney Merschat and Kulenovic are both 15-year-old freshmen.

All began wrestling against boys because there is no separate division for girls in the area. They began to travel to girls-only tournaments, and did well enough to take a shot at the sport on a national level.

Although she decided not to compete at the nationals this year and may begin phasing out of the sport as she approaches her senior year, Jordan Merschat has been the trailblazer in the sport for the three girls.

But the road wasn’t all that smooth at first.

“I had a hard time at the beginning, because I didn’t know a lot of moves,” said Jordan, who started when she was in fifth grade. “It was tough and I wasn’t sure I would ever be a good wrestler. But then I kind of got the hang of it a little bit, and then I did start to win some matches.”

Rice and John Merschat were instrumental in helping Jordan turn the corner.

“It helped that my dad, who went to Turkeyfoot, was a real good wrestler, and Butch has always been there to teach me and push me,” said Jordan, who recalls her first victory with satisfaction.

“We were at Rockwood for a first-and-second-year tournament, and I got a boy in a headlock and pinned him in 10 seconds. I was so excited, I started jumping up and down. It was amazing.”

Not surprisingly, the headlock became Jordan’s trademark move. She began to win more and more, and soon it got to the point where certain boys refused to wrestle her.

“I guess once I started to have some success, some boys heard about me and they’d say, ‘We’re not wrestling you,'” Jordan said. “I think it was just that they thought it would be embarrassing to lose to a girl.”

When Courtney began to have success, she ran into the same situation on occasion.

“At Connellsville, one kid wouldn’t even scrimmage me because he was afraid he’d lose in front of his team,” Courtney said.

Some boys took the opposite view, and it cost them.

“When they see us, a lot of boys just take it as, ‘It’s a girl, this will be an easy match,'” Kulenovic said. “We’d surprise them and end up beating them a lot of times.

“This year has been different, though. One boy wouldn’t wrestle me because he heard we were good and decided he didn’t want to take a chance on losing to me.”

“A lot of boys see us and just think they can come out there and just physically handle us,” Courtney said. “Then after we win, they have a lot more respect for us.”

The girls have earned the respect of their male teammates, too.

“I have a lot of friends there,” Kulenovic said, “like Bobby Holt and Tyler Holt. I look up to them. Most of them really get along with us. They don’t try to push us away. They actually give us a lot of respect.”

“They don’t even think about us as being girls, we’re just part of the team,” said Courtney, who went 8-6 with the junior high team this past season. “They want to beat us even more because we’re girls, and that pushes us harder.”

“When I first started practicing, it was with boys who I played baseball with,” Jordan said. “We were all good friends, so it really was no big deal to any of us.

“The last couple years I worked out by myself and I’d go up and practice with the team, and when I couldn’t do that, I’d wrestle my brother around the house.”

Like Jordan, Courtney began wrestling when she was in fifth grade, but it was more than just following in her sister’s footsteps.

“I also did it because my brother and my dad thought it would be cool and that I’d be able to be around them more,” Courtney said. “It was pretty hard to get all the moves down at first because there are so many of them. I didn’t do real well at first, but my dad and Butch started helping out a lot and that helped me sort of turn the corner.”

Kulenovic also began wrestling in fifth grade.

“My brother signed up for it a year before I did and I went to his practices,” Kulenovic said. “I thought it’d be interesting, so my parents signed me up for it.

“At first I didn’t think I was that good, but I kept trying and I thought I was getting better so I stuck with it. My dad had me conditioning at home, then I would practice every night with the team to get a feel for wrestling.”

Like Jordan, Kulenovic was stunned when she won her first match.

“I remember I got up and I was so excited, I was smiling and I jumped into my coach’s arms,” Kulenovic said. “I couldn’t believe I actually won. After that I knew wrestling was something I wanted to go forward in.”

Courtney, on the other hand, has no recollection of her first victory.

“I have no clue,” she admitted. “I can’t remember, because I didn’t think of it as a big deal back then.”

It soon became a very big deal when she charged to her national title in 2003, however.

“I won all five matches,” Courtney said. “It was crazy. I ran over to my mom and dad, I was so excited. It was overwhelming.”

Courtney, whose favorite move is a three-quarter Nelson, is making her fifth appearance at the USGWA event.

“My goal is to go up there, do my best and give all I’ve got out there to get first place,” Courtney said.

Kulenovic has been aiming at this year’s national championships for some time.

“I wrestled on the middle school team against other boys, and now I’m wrestling girls,” she said. “I go to other girls tournaments to get to know my competition so I’ll be prepared.”

This is Kulenovic’s fourth trip to nationals, and she’s won plenty of other medals and trophies along the way, as have Jordan and Courtney.

“My mom got so sick of all the trophies I had, she packed them in a box and took them out of the house,” Jordan said with a laugh. “I still keep my medals in the house because they don’t take up as much room.”

The families of the girls have been behind them throughout their wrestling careers.

“My whole family supports me,” Kulenovic said.

“Other girls don’t seem to mind either,” Courtney said. “Most of our classmates think it’s pretty cool that we wrestle.”

All three girls commend Rice for helping them immensely in wrestling, and Courtney and Kulenovic are eyeing up the possibility of earning a college scholarship in the sport.

“I love Butch just like my dad. He’s the best coach ever,” said Courtney, who admittedly was wavering on if she wanted to continue in wrestling after this year. “I think I’m going to go a couple more years to try and get a scholarship.”

Kulenovic had her sights set on that and more.

“I would like to go to college for wrestling,” she said, “and I’d like to make the Junior Olympics.”

No matter what the future holds, the three girls have already made their mark in the area by being brave enough to step up, take part and succeed in a sport that was once dominated exclusively by boys.

On the Net:

http://www.usgwa.com