“I want to wrestle.”

Those words might not be too surprising if they came out of the mouth of a rambunctious young boy. But what if that statement was made by your daughter – at the age of five?

That’s what Amanda Morris told her father, Jeff, five years ago and she has been wrestling ever since.

It is not as though she conjured up this idea on her own. Jeff Morris was an avid wrestler as a youth and as he was enthusiastically discussed one of his favorite subjects, his daughter became curious and thought she might want to give it a try.

Her dad supported Amanda’s ambitions and now at the age of 10 she has been wrestling half of her young life.

Girls wrestling is not as widespread as wrestling for boys, but it is more prevalent now than it was a few years ago.

Amanda, her younger sister Jeanne, Victoria Sutton and Payton Covert are all novice wrestlers for the Lawrence Coyotes wrestling club.

All of them said their interest in the sport was piqued by a male family member or friend.

“My brother and his friends started wrestling and I thought it was pretty cool,” Sutton said.

Now all of them have made their way into the male-dominated sport and have found success. There are some all-girl tournaments, but they are few and far between, so many times the girls square off against boys in their weight class.

They’ve found that sometimes their male opponents enter a match overconfident. “They think that they can whoop me pretty bad,” said 9-year-old Sutton.

“Most of them are just like, ‘She’s a girl. I’m going to beat her quick,'” Amanda Morris said.

“I think they’re kind of surprised,” added Covert, 12. “I think sometimes they think they’re going to win automatically.”

However, the Lady Coyotes have held their own.

Sutton pinned her first male counterpart a few weeks back. Covert has notched five victories against boys.

Eight-year-old Jeanne Morris has beaten a couple and her sister Amanda has lost count of how many times she has faced a boy in the wrestling circle.

“I really don’t know,” Amanda Morris said. “Maybe like 50?”

She estimated she has won close to half of those matches to boot.

When the girls do beat the boys they are always proud of their individual achievement. And every once in a while they get added satisfaction from the reactions of their defeated opponents.

“Afterward, it’s kind of funny,” Covert said. “If you beat them (sometimes) they start crying.”

However, she acknowledged that all of her male opponents provide a challenge and give her great preparation for the girls-only matches.

“These last couple of weekends I’ve been getting a lot better because I’ve been improving by wrestling boys,” Covert said. “They’re a lot stronger.”

Jeff Morris, who helps coach the younger Coyote boys and girls teams, said the girls learn a lot about themselves by participating in this individual sport.

“You can’t say so-and-so didn’t pass me the ball,” Jeff Morris said. “I like it like that.”

He said they also learn about their physical ability.

“Amanda used to be so much stronger than even the boys that were in her division,” he said of his older daughter. “Now that the boys are catching up, she’s learning she can’t just rely on that strength. She has to use the moves properly and use balance and leverage.”

For photos and results of the Lawrence Coyotes, see pages 14 and 15.