Ava Gardner: In a league of her own
BY MIKE WARREN
EDITOR
MARSHFIELD – It’s been said that to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. But to anyone who was watching the 100-pound Div. 1 championship match Feb. 24 near the end of the three-day WIAA State Individual Wrestling Tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison, it was clear very early on who the better wrestler was.
Marshfield High School junior Ava Gardner didn’t just beat two-time defending state champion Brooke Corrigan of De Pere. She dominated the match from start to finish, winning 17-4.
“So it was probably like the last 10 seconds of the match and I was just on top just holding her down on her stomach, and as soon as the whistle blew, time just kind of froze and I got up and I just kind of looked in the stands and I looked around and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I just won state.’ And it’s still hard to comprehend,” Gardner told Hub City Times, during our March 6 visit to the Marshfield High School wrestling room. “It means a lot to me, knowing that I just made history. My name’s going to be up on the wall forever and that’s insane, looking back at all the guys up there, and you don’t think about it until you actually do it. It’s really hard to comprehend, but it’s such a great feeling knowing I’ve been up here every day working hard for it.”
In becoming Marshfield’s first-ever girls’ wrestling champion, Gardner, 17, defeated the person who two years earlier had become Wisconsin’s inaugural female champion. Corrigan defeated Karina Torres of Kenosha Indian Trail 7-5 to secure the first championship to kick off the 2022 tournament.
And on her way to a second straight state title in 2023, Corrigan won her first two matches with first-period pins to set up a showdown in the semifinals against Gardner. Corrigan pulled off a 7-5 decision, in what turned out to be her tightest match of the tournament.
And just like Corrigan before her, Gardner’s toughest test in this year’s state tournament also came in the semifinal round, where she held off Iszy Sonnentag of Cadot, 9-7.
Both Gardner and Corrigan had scored quick pinfalls in their opening-round matches. Ava then notched a technical fall win in the quarterfinals, beating Aini Anderson of Holmen, 15-0. After another quick pinfall in her round two match, Corrigan defeated Kylie Klum of Westby, 6-0 in their semifinal showdown, setting up a rematch with Gardner, this time with a state championship on the line.
“This year, I took a lot of steps towards getting my technique down [and] how I wrestle,” Ava told us. “Knowing that I lost to her last year, I especially tried to look at everything that I could’ve done better and what I needed to work on, so I think most of it was me trying to figure out my technique and my style, trying to figure out how I would wrestle and how I can beat them,” she added. “And as soon as I figured that out, then I worked on my strength and I worked on just getting my conditioning up, and I think that definitely helped getting to the finals and beating her (Corrigan) by quite a bit.”
Gardner said part of her championship run came from the confidence in knowing she had defeated several of the common opponents she and Corrigan had throughout the year, matchups which the defending state champ had lost.
Soon, Ava Gardner will find her name on the board that hangs above the mats in the Tiger wrestling room, which currently bears the names of the ten other Marshfield wrestlers who have won individual state championships. She is the school’s first state wrestling champion in five years. Next year, Ava’s goal is to successfully defend her title, and in the process become Marshfield’s first back-to-back champion since Brad Dolezal accomplished the feat in 2011.
Ava started wrestling in tournaments when she was in the fourth grade. She got serious about the sport during her freshman year.
“I was so nervous going out for the team because I was going to be the only girl up there, and it was just such a big thing. You’re in high school now, so it’s such a big deal. You’re the only girl up there in an entire room of guys,” Gardner recalled. “But then I got used to it and it was definitely one of my best decisions I’ve made. I was really on the fence about going out freshman year, but it’s really turned into a great opportunity for me.”
During her freshman year, Ava wrestled mostly boys, and was on the team when they went to Regionals, where she suffered an injury in her first match.
The following season, Gardner participated in more girls’ tournaments as a sophomore.
“Still wrestled a lot with the boys, and I give them a lot of credit because if I didn’t wrestle the guys up here, I definitely would not be nearly as good as I am now,” said Gardner.
Beyond high school, Gardner is not sure where the sport might take her.
“College for girls is freestyle and I’m much better at folkstyle, but I’m hoping to get better at freestyle throughout the summer, get to a couple tournaments, get better at it, so then maybe I have a chance at going to college, get a scholarship, go to college and wrestle.”
In the meantime, Ava is hoping she can use her success to grow the sport of girls’ wrestling at the middle and high school levels.
“They just have to take that chance, take that leap of faith almost, and just try it, even if they try it and they don’t like it. Freshman year, my dad told me, ‘If you don’t take this, this is going to be your biggest regret ever.’ So I think, even if you don’t think you want to do it or you’re too scared, you’ve got to just take that leap of faith and just be like, ‘I’m just going to try it. I’m going to start going to practices. I’m just going to see how I feel about it.’ Whether that is something that you end up sticking with or not, it’s still a great experience for you to have at least tried.”