Photo by Adrienne J. Romero / SOC Images.
**Locker Room Talk is a Slice of Culture series where we highlight different athletes, coaches and more from local high schools and colleges from Hudson County and New Jersey overall.
Sandra Guerrero grew up on the mat, so naturally she developed an interest in wrestling.
Guerrero’s parents owned a jiu jitsu school, with her father being a fifth-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. At eight years old, she started wrestling and now competes in jiu jitsu as well.
Her family was very supportive of her wrestling, especially her father who encouraged it. Even her grandmother who told her–in Spanish–that she’d turn into a boy if she kept wrestling, has now become one of her biggest supporters to the point where she also watches random wrestling matches on TV.
But being a female in a predominantly male sport caused Guerrero to face challenges early on.
She would regularly be the only girl competing in a tournament and had difficulty finding a partner as boys didn’t want to pair up with her. Coaches and parents would sometimes say negative comments.
Guerrero recalls wrestling a boy in middle school. Traditionally, the two competitors shake hands before and after a match. Guerrero’s opponent refused to shake her hand, and after she pinned him, he refused again.
“He didn’t wanna shake my hand after, which is like a huge sign of disrespect. And it was because I was a girl. After all, he said it, ‘oh, she’s just a girl.’ Like, he was mad, he lost,” Guerrero said.
“So I remember that and I remember feeling like I just beat you fair and square. So, that was only because of who I am and that I’m a girl. There’s no reason because he wouldn’t have done that if he had lost to a boy.”
These challenges affected Guerrero’s interest in wrestling, but during her junior year of high school, she began to fall in love with it.
In her first two years of high school, Guerrero had to wrestle in the junior varsity boys’ tournaments because there wasn’t a girls’ tournament. This changed in her junior year when girls’ wrestling was sanctioned and she began to receive more acknowledgment.
Guerrero is now at NJCU, where she will be entering her fifth season.
Her first season was marred by COVID, leading to a significantly shortened season. She was still able to finish eighth place in the NCWWC All-American at 191 lbs.
She had a great sophomore season, going 18-1, and finished 7th place in the NCWWC All-American at 191 lbs. In her junior year, she started an undefeated 8-0 before contracting mono and was out for the rest of the season.
Mono caused her spleen to become enlarged, which could prove fatal if it ruptures. Despite this, Guerrero still wanted to continue wrestling, but the risks were too great. She tried throughout the season to get cleared but was unable to.
Guerrero returned in her senior year, posting a 29-1 record and became the NCWWC Region I Champion and won the NCWWC Nationals All-America at 191 lbs.
“They were like, ‘If you do any physical activity, it could rupture.’ And I was like, ‘No, you don’t understand. I’m ranked in the country for wrestling,'” she laughed. “And they’re like, ‘You don’t understand, you’re gonna die if you wrestle.’ And I was like, ‘dude.'”
She is now a three-time All-American on the national stage and is the first NCWWC national champion in New Jersey.
“There’s a picture of me as a little kid on a wrestling mat and I just look so lost and confused. I’m like, this little girl doesn’t know what’s going on, doesn’t know what’s happening. Probably didn’t even wanna be there. But she’s a national champion, she said.
“I look at that picture all the time because I’m doing this for her. This is a big deal. I didn’t realize how much history I was making until after the fact. Like when people were telling me how it feels to be the first… And I was like, I didn’t even know I was the first to do that.”
Back then, Guerrero said she was lucky to see another girl at a wrestling tournament, but they were never in her weight class. Today, there are about 58 wrestling programs on the collegiate level, and Guerrero nabbed the first-ever national win for NJCU.
In May, the New Jersey wrestler also got to train with Olympian wrestlers, which was a very humbling experience, but she said she learned a lot “and it was awesome.” At first she felt overwhelmed because she had watched film of these athletes for “so many hours.” Ultimately, she felt grateful for sharing the mat with them.
Some of her favorite wrestlers are two-time Olympian and two-time silver medalist Kayla Miracle and Vito Arujau, the 2023 World Champion and Pan-American Champion for freestyle wrestling.
“Now there’s tournaments where it’s all little girls and I just love watching the little ones,” Guerrero said.
“… [As a kid] nobody wanted to be my partner… so that was really tough. [But] now you’ll have all girls wrestling practices, which is so cool. We’ll just have little girls beating up on the boys anyway, which is awesome too.”
