Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Fimbres sticks it out, hopes to close with state title
Abigail Fimbres had no idea what she was signing up for.
During her freshman orientation at Fayetteville High School, coaches for the school’s wrestling team addressed students with a recruiting pitch.
“They’re saying they’re starting the girls’ wrestling team, making it sound like they had one,” Abigail remembered. “So I looked into it.”
She was “shocked” to find out this wasn’t the case.
Fayetteville not only didn’t have a wrestling team for girls, but girls wrestling also wouldn’t be sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association for another two years.
Fimbres surprised her mother, Esmeralda, when she came home and informed her she wanted to give wrestling a shot.
“We were thinking she was gonna play volleyball or something like that because I had even signed her up for volleyball classes and stuff throughout the summer,” Esmeralda said. “I didn’t think she was gonna stick with it.
She really caught on to it.”
Current Fayetteville wrestling coach Casper Petty was an assistant when he helped recruit Fimbres to wrestling.
She was the foundation block for the girls’ team, according to Petty, Fimbres is now a senior with one match left in her high school wrestling career — today’s state tournament in Little Rock.
Petty said he honestly didn’t know what to do to pitch the sport to students who weren’t boys.
“I recruited most of my girls out of a cafeteria,” Petty said. “Slow process.”
For Petty, the most rewarding aspect of the last four years has been the turnover and development so quickly in team members like Fimbres, which resulted in his squad winning the 6A-West title on Jan. 22.
For Fimbres, without other girls to face-off against at the start, that left only one option.
The boys.
“I went to the practices to watch them and I just thought it was pretty cool just to see them because I would wrestle with my brothers sometimes,” she said. “But I didn’t want to not wrestle them just because they were a guy. … I was gonna still try my best even though they were a guy. And there were times where I did win. And the guys would be like, ‘damn.’
“It felt good for me. I had fun either way, win or losing.”
Fimbres will be the first girls’ team member to stick with it all four years through graduation. She entered the program wrestling in the 120-pound division, but will exit in the 108-pound division.
In those four years, Petty said Fimbres’ maturity level on the mat has grown.
“Her understanding of mat awareness has become outstanding,” Perry said. “She does a good job of understanding position and control way more so now than she ever has. I think a lot of that stems from the fact that she used to have to wrestle boys and they were bigger and stronger.
“Well now she’s wrestling girls who aren’t bigger and stronger, but they’re more flexible and they’re quicker. So she’s had to adapt.”
And as Petty observes, where she was once a more of a strategic girl, she’s adapted into the team’s hammer.
“I don’t know if she’s wrestled many matches this year where she hasn’t gone out and made them crawl off the mat,” Petty said. “Just physically exhausted when they get off the mat. She’s lost a couple of matches this year. But even in those matches, they weren’t easy. Those girls were hurting.”
She enters her final tournament with a 16-4 record.
Fimbres said the winding down to the end of her high school career has been exciting, but a little sad.
“It is the last time and it’s just kind of like, ‘Well, this is the last time I’m gonna do this and go to practice. And see everyone wrestle and cheer everyone,” she said. “Be there in that atmosphere with everyone. It’s exciting, but mixed emotions.”
She’s given some thought to wrestling in college but hasn’t made that decision yet.
“I want to be 100 percent sure if I do want to go wrestle in college,” she said. “I’m just not sure yet.”
What she is sure of is that she wants to be part of Fayetteville’s program even after her time on the mat is over, and coaching is a possibility.
“I would like to do that just because I’m already coaching the new girls that are there in wrestling,” Abigail said.
Petty is fully on-board with that.
“I fully intend on bringing her back and trying to get her in at a youth level and try to try to keep her part of the program once she finishes college,” Petty said. “That way, she can continue that building foundation that she started.”