Not too long ago, Jaycee Foeller couldn’t have imagined getting involved with wrestling. Now the De Soto sophomore can’t imagine herself without the sport.
A cheerleader for as long as she can remember, Foeller watched as her brothers began to compete in club wrestling. The last thing that she wanted to do was join them on the mat.
“My brothers were doing it, and I thought, ‘No, that’s a terrible sport. I don’t want to do that, that’s gross,’” Foeller said.
The encouragement from one of her brothers’ coaches, Dave Willis, initially had Foeller rethinking her stance. But it was the discouragement from her father that Foeller said really got her off of the sidelines.
“I didn’t want to do it at first, but then my dad told me I couldn’t do it, so I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to do it just because you told me not to,’” Foeller said. “And then I kind of fell in love with it.”
In large part because of how it made Foeller feel on the inside.
“With cheerleading, you always had to be like, ‘Wow!’ and I was never really a ‘Wow!’ type of person,” Foeller said. “I was kind of quiet. I kept to myself. I would talk to the girls on my team, but that was about it. I was really kind of awkward, but with this sport, because of the people I’ve been around, they’ve brought me out of my shell, and I’ve become more confident in myself as a person. I don’t really second-guess myself anymore, I just kind of do what I feel is right.”
It also didn’t hurt that Foeller showed immediate promise, and before long, she was competing at a national level.
In the summer of 2017, Foeller placed third in the Cadet women's freestyle division championship at the Junior Freestyle National Championships in Fargo, N.D. Then last summer, she won the Cadet title at 180 pounds and was also second in the Junior women's division at 180.
“Honestly, I can’t believe how well things have gone,” Foeller said.
Foeller recently began training with the Olympic Development Program, and the success has continued into the prep season. Wrestling at 167 pounds, Foeller has posted a record of 26-0, which includes a championship in the Seckman Women’s Tournament on Saturday. Foeller pinned all five competitors she faced, four of them in the opening period.
“I didn’t think this tournament was going to be easy at all, because I knew there were some tough wrestlers that I had never seen before,” she said. “I was just going to go into it with a clear head and rely on the muscles, so I wasn’t really thinking at all. I just kind of go and do what I can do.”
Foeller faced a bit of a challenge in the last match of the day against Lafayette’s Josette Partney. About midway through the second period with the score 0-0, Partney appeared to have Foeller set up for a takedown, but Foeller was able to calmly work her way out of the predicament for a two-point reversal, then turned it into a pin with 34.2 seconds remaining in the period.
“With a head and arm, that’s what she hit on me, and I knew I had to get my hips back if anything, and she already had my head pretty tight, so I just had to take it slow, keep scooting my head to get my hips out, so then I could get my head out,” Foeller said.
“I have to feel things out. I’ve got to think about what I’m doing before I can do it, and that’s just one of those precise things that I have to do. I know that I have to do things a certain way, otherwise if I don’t, I’m going to get caught, or I’m going to get pinned. I’m going to explore whatever it is I need to do to get out of the situation that I’m in.”
Foeller credited her teammates on the De Soto boys squad for helping her fine tune her “certain way” on a regular basis.
“I have boys in the practice room that really kick my butt, every day, and they don’t take it easy on me,” she said with a laugh. “They treat me just like one of the guys, and they push me just like they push each other. They don’t expect to take it easy on me just because I’m a girl. They treat me like they treat any other wrestler, and that’s what I want.”
Foeller also stressed the importance of the other girls on the Dragons, junior Hunter Bullock (131 pounds) and sophomores Isabella Hartwell (116) and Julianna Hunt (136). Bullock won her first four matches by fall at Seckman before losing by pin to Geneviev Nickelson of Ste. Genevieve and placing second in her bracket.
“My teammates are super supportive,” Foeller said. “In the practice room, the girls will be really pushing me, even though I’m tired, and I’ll be doing the same to them because we all want to see us be more successful. If we don’t push in the practice room, it’s going to show on the mat, and that support system we have, we just know what we can do for each other.”
With the Class 1 District 1 Tournament at St. Clair on Saturday and the state tournament in Columbia the following weekend, Foeller knows that there is a target on her back, but she just plans to keep on doing what has gotten her to this point.
“My mindset is just going to be on my training for districts,” Foeller said. “I’m going to take it one day at a time, and just keep my focus on how I can improve myself.”
Among the remaining Jefferson County competitors at the Seckman tournament, Hillsboro sophomore Grace Johnson placed second in the C bracket at 143 pounds. Johnson pinned Deana Raasch of Winfield and Shemaria Martin of North Kansas City but lost by fall to St. Clair’s Elexis Wohlgemuth, and finished the weekend with a 10-9 record.
“It feels pretty freaking awesome,” Johnson said of the medal around her neck.
“I’m really proud. It’s pretty awesome to be able to do this, and I’m really proud with how well I’m doing for my first year.”
Hillsboro coach Jeff Hoese shared in that pride.
“It’s been super cool being part of building the foundation for women’s wrestling at Hillsboro,” Hoese said. “I’m getting goosebumps right now just talking about it, but it’s just exciting. And to see these girls to go from basically babies, and now they’re doing everything that you’re telling them to do and getting better, it’s exciting.”
Also placing second at the tournament were Windsor’s Jalia Carmello (126) and Corinne McClure (121) of the host Jaguars.