The sisters Scharp turn themselves into history makers by becoming the first Chesterton girls to advance to the ISHAA state wrestling championships

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Here at the age of 135, Chesterton High School had a girl qualify Saturday for the IHSAA state wrestling championships for the first time. Twenty minutes later, a second Trojan qualified.
Two wrestlers, one family.
Sisters MJ and Alice Scharp made history at the Plymouth girls wrestling regional, each placing fourth to earn a berth in the state meet at Corteva Coliseum, Indiana State Fairgrounds & Event Center on Friday, Jan. 16. The first round begins at 9 a.m. CT.
In fairness to the students from the school’s century and a third of existence, this is only the second year that girls wrestling has been an IHSAA-sanctioned sport. Still, no matter how many girls qualify to “infinity and beyond,” as Buzz Lightyear once put it, the Scharp sisters always will be the first two.
The accomplishment of MJ, a freshman who only has been wrestling two years, serves as inspiration to athletes who might fear they are taking up a sport too late. Alice showed that an injury might knock you down, but it doesn’t have to knock you out, no matter how long the odds.
Chris Richardson, head coach of Chesterton’s growing girls program, discussed how he sees the Scharp sisters being alike and different.
“They’re alike in that they support each other. They’re positive with each other. They train with each other,” Richardson said.
Scharp sharpens Scharp squared.
“They’re different because they’re different style wrestlers. They use different style moves. They use different combinations, so they have their own style, their own flair,” he continued. “One’s more defensive (Alice), one’s more offensive. But they always support each other and they’re good team leaders. That’s how they’re alike.”
The sisters checked all the boxes in preparing for their biggest opportunity in wrestling, a sport each took up in seventh grade.
“We went to bed early to get some extra rest, especially with waking up early today,” Alice said.
How early?
“Five,” she said. “Not really too early.”
That’s all relative.
Each girl had her own method of ensuring a good night’s sleep.
MJ: “I wrote for a while in my journal, mostly about wrestling but some other things too, and then got to sleep.”
Alice: “I like to pray and that helps me fall asleep. It just kind of calms down my mind.”
Richardson said he views the Scharps advancing to the ultimate meet as boosting a growth spurt for the program.
“It shows that the dedication of our coaches, our athletes, and the cooperation from other entities from the school has all culminated to the point where we are,” Richardson said. “Every year we’re getting better and better as a team. We’re getting better as individual wrestlers, and we’re starting to see some of those rewards from it with the two girls advancing from the regional. It’s not our ultimate goal of getting as many girls or all of our girls to advance, but we’ll take our small wins and build on them and get better and better to create a really strong women’s program at Chesterton High School.”
Four wrestlers from each of the 14 weight classes qualified from each of the four regionals, which means that 16 wrestlers at each weight will vie for a state championship.
MJ and Alice made Chesterton history with their father, Will, an assistant to Richardson, in their corners. The sisters made the field by winning championships eight days earlier at the Hobart sectional.
All 224 wrestlers who competed at Plymouth on Saturday shared a primary goal: win their first two matches to lock up a spot in the state field, and 56 of them accomplished it.
As always, MJ made it interesting, making those rooting for her sweat by falling behind in both of the matches that she needed to win to advance, which made it all the more exhilarating for her backers when she defeated them in the 115-pound bracket.
She trailed 9-1 against her first opponent, Rensselaer Central freshman Isabella Aponte, who took a 3-5 record into the regional. Not to worry ( much easier said than done), MJ had been there, done that only to have her hand raised many times. She pinned Aponte with 18 seconds remaining in the second period. She fell behind again early in the ticket round, so named because the winner punches a ticket to state, and then locked up her trip to Indy by pinning Central Noble’s Madilyn Skinner 43 seconds into the second period.
Richardson confessed to getting nervous watching her fall behind, but has seen too many mid-match Scharp turns to not believe she could do it again.
“That just attests to her tenacity, her self-discipline and her hard work ethic,” he said of her multiple comebacks. “This is what she’s trained all year for and she’s going to get better and better each year as she continues on through the program while she’s at Chesterton High School.”
Lowell’s Alexia Utley defeated MJ in the semifinal and went on to win the regional title. MJ didn’t make it through the second period of her third-place match, losing by medical forfeit when she suffered a painful injury to her lower left leg. She was helped off the mat, an ice pack was taped onto her leg and her father carried her to her seat in the bleachers.
“They think it’s probably just a muscle strain or something, so hopefully I’ll bounce back from it,” MJ said.
In wrestling and recovering from injuries, Scharps have a tendency to bounce back well.
Alice bucked the odds in wrestling at all in the postseason, returning three weeks ahead of schedule from a fractured sternum suffered in a match. Wrestling at 140 pounds, Alice won a sectional championship on her first day back.
Her trip to state at the regional was a smoother sail than her sister’s. She pinned Central Noble’s Eliana Antunez at the end of the second period in the first round and then punched her ticket with a technical fall, 15-0, achieved in 4:08 against Penn wrestler Madelyn Winter.
Wawasee’s Kenidi Nine pinned her in 5:40 to advance to the title match and Alice settled for fourth after losing to Bremen wrestler Makenzie Shumaker, 9-2.
“Since sectionals was my first time back, it was good to get some tougher matches under my belt,” Alice said.
Chesterton juniors Arti Haney and Ally Williams fell one win shy of advancing to state after starting their mornings with big wins.
Haney maneuvered her way to a pin of Glenn’s Miah Lichtenbarger 3:14 into the opening-round match. Elaine Leins of East Noble ended Haney’s quest to make it to state with a pin in 2:34.
Williams faced Munster’s Karibella Rodriguez in a 125-pound first-round tussle and prevented her from scoring her 26th win of the season by winning a major decision, 16-7. Williams (19-8) then was pinned by Garrett’s Maya Hammond in 2:24.
Kileigh Flynn, the only senior among the eight Trojans who competed at the sectional, had the toughest draw of the five Chesterton wrestlers at the regional, pitted against Naima Ghaffar of NorthWood. Ghaffar brought a 33-0 record into the day, pinned Flynn in 28 seconds and took home a 36-1 record after losing to Garrett’s Nevaeh Wilson in the title match.
The Scharp sisters both are facing undefeated wrestlers at the state meet and both were quick to credit the growth of the program in helping them get there.
“There are a lot more people participating this year, which gives a lot more experience to everyone because you can wrestle with different people in practice,” MJ said. “It’s really cool to see all the girls grow because then as they get better, they help to make other people better. So, like, everyone stacks levels and then it just helps to make the whole team better. There are quite a few middle school wrestles this year.”
At state, MJ (28-8) opposes West Lafayette’s Macy Fordyce (32-0), champion of the Kokomo regional.
Alice (19-4) meets Pendleton Heights wrestler Maddie Marsh (19-0), champion of the Muncie Central regional.