NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa. (EYT/D9) — The only regret Emma Taladay has is about time.
There’s been so little of it for her on the wrestling mat.
(Pictured above, Redbank Valley senior girls wrestler Emma Taladay/submitted photos)
A senior at Redbank Valley, Taladay was itching to do a sport in her final year of high school. She hadn’t done one — yet. The timing never seemed right and the sports she was interested in had athletes taking part in them who were long on experience.
And she was tragically short.
Then the inaugural girls wrestling team formed at the school and suddenly that barrier was gone.
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She’d start on the ground floor, along with everyone else on the team.
“It was a whole new thing. Everybody was new,” Taladay said. “So I thought I’d give it a try. I always wanted to do a sport and I saw wrestling as my best opportunity.”
Little did Taladay know she’d be a lower-weight-class dynamo.
The sport lent itself to her strengths. Determination. Commitment. Unrelenting tenacity. Willingness to do whatever it took to compete, have fun and win.
It didn’t start out that way for the 100-pounder, who began her wrestling odyssey in the 106-pound weight class.
During those early days of practice, it seemed she and the rest of her teammates were light years away from being ready to wrestle.
“There were plenty of time that I wanted to give up,” Taladay said. “Those first couple of weeks of wrestling practice were quite rough. None of us were in shape. I wasn’t in shape by any means. It took awhile for us to get used to it and learn the rules. There’s so much I didn’t know.
“I’m glad I stuck with it,” she added, “and got this far.”
Mere months after her crash course in Wrestling 101, Taladay will compete Saturday with a trip to the PIAA Girls Wrestling Championships on the line.
At the District 5/6/9 Girls Individual Wrestling Tournament at the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown last weekend, Taladay made it all the way to the 100-pound final.
She fell to Autumn Shoff of Moshannon Valley in the championship bout, but she still qualified for the Central Girls Regional Championship.
(Taladay, left, takes control of her opponent)
“It was really exciting, especially since this is my first year,” Taladay said. “It was really surprising that I kind of pickedup on everything quickly. I think by the third tournament of the year, I was really starting to enjoy it. And then I started winning. That made it even more fun.”
A drop in weight class also helped.
At 106 pounds, Taladay struggled. When she shaved enough weight to move down to the 100-pound weight class, she made a meteoric rise.
Getting down to 100 wasn’t easy, however. Taladay had to radically change her diet and her workout schedule. But that’s where her determination came in.
“That was one of the hardest things,” Taladay said. “I started off at 106 and the competition was pretty tough. A lot of them were better than me. But when I cut down to 100, I had more muscle, and I could compete better.
“It took like two or three weeks to (get down to 100),” she added. “It was a lot of work — I had to watch what I ate a lot and practice almost every day and if I wasn’t practicing, I stayed after school and worked out — but it was worth it.”
Taladay will have some company at the regional.
Four of her Redbank Valley teammates will be there. Keyauna Schimp (190 pounds) was third in the District 5/6/9 tournament. Riley Kerchinski (112), Natalie Troup (148) and Makenna Monrean (170) placed sixth and also advanced.
Because everyone was on the team for the first time this season, the group became very close.
“There were nine of us and there were a few who had wrestled previously, but most of us, it was our first year,” Taladay said. “A lot of us are like family now.”
Taladay isn’t putting a lot of pressure on herself on Saturday.
If she qualifies for the state tournament, she will understandably be excited, she said. If she missed out, it won’t diminish what she has done in her only year on the mat.
And the fun she had doing it.
“This is more about having fun because this is my first year,” Taladay said. “I didn’t expect to go to regionals. This weekend I’m just focusing on having fun.”
No matter what happens, there will be no regrets.
Except for maybe that time thing. She wishes she had more of it. She wishes wrestling would have come into her life sooner.
She would have loved to see what she could have done.
“If I had just one or two more years, it would make a huge difference,” Taladay said. “It’s been really cool. It’s something I won’t forget.”
“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” Taladay said. “Even though I had only one year, I’m really glad I did it. It taught me when you care about something a lot, it makes an enormous difference. It gave me a lot of confidence and it is really nice to hear all the good things and see how far I’ve come.”
Redbank Valley, Keystone, and Union/A-C Valley sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Heeter Lumber.
