Model turned wrestler
Longwood junior places fifth at national tournament
By Joe Werkmeister
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"Absolutely not," Ethan recalled telling his daughter Shana Lee when she first inquired about wrestling.
Shana had already done some modeling and was athletic enough to play any other sport she wished (although football was her first choice). But wrestling? Model and wrestler? Talk about an oxymoron.
Ethan, who coaches wrestling at Longwood, tried explaining to her how it wasn't a fun game. His ploy didn't work.
So one day Shana, her mom and sister sat down at their kitchen table in their Shoreham home to plead with Ethan.
"They wanted to know how come you help everybody else but you won't help your own daughter?" he said.
It was on.
Three years later Shana, 16, has grown into one of the top female wrestlers in the nation. At the Junior National Championships in Fargo, N.D., at the end of July she placed fifth in the 116-pound weight class. She won five of seven matches in a competition that featured high school-aged girls from across the country. Twenty-seven girls competed in her weight class.
In her final match she defeated Dannette O'Hara of Kansas, 5-1, 5-0. Her two losses came against first-place winner Helen Maroulis of Maryland and fourth-place finisher Megan Yamaguchi of Hawaii.
She's also competed at national tournaments in Colorado and Michigan this year. Wrestling at 120 in the National Championships in Michigan, Shana placed fourth, falling in the third-place match to Kat Perez of California, 4-3. In Colorado she finished second.
Shana is one of four female wrestlers at Longwood, along with Jenna Burkett, Claudia Lopez and Angelica Lopez.
"We started with a group of young kids about four years ago," Ethan said. "[Shana] came in a year afterward, and we're expecting good things to happen in the next couple of years."
Shana will begin her junior year at Longwood this fall, where she'll continue a grueling workout schedule with the male wrestlers. She trains five days a week for two hours, August being her only month off in the year.
On the junior varsity last year, she compiled a 15-8 record against boys.
She also wrestled varsity in a few tournaments and placed third at 112 in the Paul P. Grammatico Tournament at Valley Stream South. Her consolation win came via forfeit, an unfortunate end to many of her matches against boys.
"It's not really awkward for me but for them you could tell they feel a little different," she said. "There are some kids who will forfeit right off the bat. That kind of frustrates me because I want to go out there and wrestle. It doesn't matter to me who they are."
Shana realized early on in her career there was only one way to gain the respect of teammates and opponents: She had to earn it.
Where in the beginning male opponents may have been timid around the petite, pretty girl who's modeled in Teen Trend Magazine, they know better now.
"They don't view her half as much as a girl wrestler as a wrestler," Ethan said. "She's got some skills and she's a very physical wrestler. They have to show up."
In her first match ever Shana wrestled a two-time national champion from Ohio in the first round of a tournament. She was pinned in the third period, although the referee was quick to make the call, Ethan said.
At the start of her career Shana said she was definitely nervous. There were injuries to worry about. She broke her collarbone her first year and had to fight her way back.
Her foray into wrestling started when her dad got back into coaching at Longwood with Mike Picozzi. The two had been longtime coaches that built the program into one of the states' best in the '90s. After a few years away from the program they returned. Shana would attend practices with her dad, which immediately sparked her interest.
"At first I just wanted to try it," she said. "Once I went on the mat I really started liking it. From there it's just grown on me."
For all her achievements thus far, perhaps her greatest feat was convincing her dad she could wrestle.
"It was really tough to convince him," she said. "He kept thinking that the boys aren't going to want to wrestle you, you're a girl, it's a lose-lose situation. Then I just kept convincing him every little step."
Shana's development in three years has far exceeded what Ethan could have predicted. She just missed qualifying to represent the United States at the Cadet Pan American Championships in El Salvador. Burkett earned a spot in the tournament and came home with a gold medal as the U.S. team won the team title.
Going into the league tournament last year Shana was second on the depth chart for Longwood at 119, the highest a female wrestler had ever achieved.
As she's progressed Shana's developed from a girl wrestler to just another wrestler on the team, fitting right in with the boys.
"[The boys] have accepted the girls as regular wrestlers because they have to duel with them every day," Ethan said.
Shana credited her training partners, Andrew Stock and Seth Corso, for helping her develop as a wrestler. Partnering with a girl can present its challenges for a boy. For starters, wrestlers want to compete against the best competition so they can improve. Often the guys will be stronger than a girl, giving them a decided edge.
"They all want to work with somebody bigger and better," Ethan said.
In practices every wrestler faces off against each other at some point and it's no different for Shana. She's even wrestled Ernest James, who last year wrestled at 215 and finished second in the county tournament.
"I attempt [to take him down]," Shana said. "But my attempts don't usually work. Him and Daren Feliciano always beat me up.
One of Shana's biggest supporters has been her sister, Ariana, who graduated from Longwood in June.
Ariana would watch all of Shana's local matches and even came to practices. Most important, when she needed a word of encouragement, Ariana would be there.
In one match a wrestler lifted Shana and threw her on her head.
"[Ariana] got so mad," Shana said. "She almost ran out on the mat."
As Shana progresses the next two years she hopes to crack the varsity lineup, a formidable challenge at a large school like Longwood, even for boys. Beyond high school the possibility of a wrestling scholarship for college isn't out of the question, although only a handful of schools offer women's wrestling programs.
But the sport continues to grow. This year's Olympics mark the second games in which women's wrestling was contested.
When Shana hits the mats these days her focus is strictly on wrestling. Any awkwardness or nerves have subsided. Her goals are not unlike those of every other wrestler who wears the Longwood uniform: Win.
"Once they got to know me, they adopted me into the family," she said. "I was part of their family and they treated me like every other wrestler."
