Chesterton girls wrestling royalty: Sisters MJ and Alice Scharp execute comebacks of different sorts to stand atop the podium at Hobart as sectional champions

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

It’s official: The Scharps are the first family of Chesterton girls wrestling and until someone knocks them off that pedestal they will remain there.
Both MJ, a freshman, and Alice, a sophomore, stood on the top step of the podium at the Hobart sectional after winning championships Friday. Their father, Will Scharp, an assistant coach for the Trojans, was acting head coach for a day, filling in for Chris Richardson.
Alice came back from a fractured sternum in half the time it usually takes to recover from such an injury to win a sectional title for the second year in a row, this time at 140 pounds. MJ came back from a 6-0 deficit in her semifinal match to win the title at 115 pounds.
Ally Williams came from behind in all three of her matches to place second at 125 pounds and Arti Haney placed third at 145 pounds. All four wrestlers advanced to the Plymouth regional to take place on Jan. 10. The top four finishers in each weight class advanced to the state finals at Corteva Coliseum in Indianapolis at the state fairgrounds site.
Chesterton senior Kileigh Flynn came within seconds of winning a trip to the regional with a regulation win in the quarterfinal round, only to lose in overtime and take fifth place. Junior Aubree Peters took an early lead in her quarterfinal but reinjured her knee in that match and placed sixth after taking a medical forfeit in the middle of her final match.
Hobart won the 16-school sectional with 270.5 points, followed by Portage (167), Valparaiso (153.5), Kankakee Valley (130) and Chesterton (102).
The Scharp sisters not only helped their school to a fifth-place finish, they boosted their regional seeds by winning titles. MJ made those rooting for her nervous that she would be battling for third place when her semifinal opponent came dangerously close to pinning her.
Did they have any reason to be on edge?
“No,” MJ said of her 12-9 overtime victory over Hobart senior Maddie Lams. “Some people when they get down they get mentally broken. You just have to keep believing in yourself. And sometimes I don’t even know what the score is. I just know I have to keep wrestling and wrestle my match, no matter what.”
That’s what she did, catching up to make it 6-6, briefly going ahead 8-7, and then heading to sudden victory with the score 9-9.
“I got a reversal and then I took her over on a cradle. I didn’t pin her but I got four back points and that allowed me to come back,” MJ said.
Seeded second, she went on to pin top-seeded Paige Nellet of Portage in 4:49 in the title match, which didn’t generate as much talk as her semi.
“The girl turned her and she ditched out of it,” Williams said of Lams. “I was a little bit nervous, but MJ’s really good at getting out of stuff. MJ is a good wrestler and I think she will make it to state and come senior year I think she could probably even win state. The Scharps are really good wrestlers and MJ definitely has some of the most skill on the team and she’s only been wrestling for two years.”
Whatever stress supporters might feel watching MJ battling from behind doesn’t seem to be shared by the wrestler.
“MJ has a tendency to not really care what the score is or what the situation is,” her father/coach said. “There’s a little bit of me that’s like, ‘Oh no, we’re getting down a little too much’ but in the back of my mind there’s always ‘She never gives up. She just refuses to give up.’ Same as Alice. Alice’s last match the girl about turned her and she just refused to get turned: ‘I will not get turned.’ MJ’s much the same way.”
Whereas MJ received a bye in the first round and only had to wrestle three matches, Alice wrestled four, her first four since suffering the fractured sternum on Dec. 6.
“I was happy she had a first-round match because at least she had time to get back into it and take it over,” MJ said of Alice.
During her absence from competition, Alice was able to work on strengthening her lower body and working on her stamina without wrestling. A Christmas Eve X-ray that showed her fracture was “90%” healed cleared her to resume wrestling.
“I felt like I hadn’t trained for three weeks and then all these other girls are out practicing, getting better, while I’m just kind of sitting around and not able to do very much,” Alice said. “So it was kind of hard just knowing they’ve put in more work than me. But also I put in a lot of work throughout the preseason in the summer. So it was just good to know that the work that I’d put in before would help last me through.”
Also, she pointed out that whatever stamina deficits she might still have were masked by her first two matches being such quick ones. The first lasted 40 seconds, the second one 37 seconds. It took her 3:00 to pin Valparaiso junior Aubrey Fernandez in the semifinal round. Alice dominated in the final, winning by major decision, 12-1, over Addy Hendricks of Hobart.
When she was sidelined, all Alice could do at meets was watch her teammates and cheer for them. She did more of the same at the sectional when she wasn’t wrestling.
“A lot of times I pray for strength for all the other wrestlers in their matches, especially Aubree to heal her injury,” Alice said. “And I’ve tried sometimes to keep my dad calm because in one of the matches today he was definitely getting into it with the ref and the ref was not happy. Coaches can get misconducts or sometimes get kicked out from the rest of this meet and the next meet, so that would not be good.”
Will Scharp disagreed with an official’s ruling, voiced his opinion and was greeted with a glare, at which point the coach put his hand out and said, “I apologize.” No harm, no foul.
Scharp said he was in charge for a day because Richardson had a Christmas-related family event.
“He wanted to be here,” Will said. “He’s been texting me non-stop all day, keeping up with the updates.”
The Trojans made their coaches proud in girls wrestling’s second year as an IHSAA-sanctioned sport.
“Overall it was a good day,” Will said. “Two firsts, a second, a third, a fifth, a sixth, which is good for only having eight girls wrestling. The goal next year is to have more than eight girls here wrestling at sectionals.”
(Check back on Onwardtrojans.com in coming days for stories on Chesterton girls wrestlers Williams, Haney, Flynn and Peters.)