June Welch: 1st Female SC State Championship Wrestler
By: Garrett Mitchell, Staff Writer
June Welch never looked at the score, nor did she hear the roar of the crowd rising to a crescendo behind her as the final seconds to history melted away from the clock.
All Welch was focused on was her next move.
The Woodruff High School sophomore saw an opening, took a shot at the legs of Chester’s Eduardo De Paz and brought the Cyclones’ grappler to the mat before rolling him quickly onto his back.
With seven seconds remaining in the third period, the referee slammed his hand to the mat and confirmed a foregone conclusion…June Welch a state champion.
“It wasn’t until I got (De Paz) on his back and was about to pin him that I could hear the crowd cheering,” said Welch.
But the thousands of fans watching at the Anderson Civic Center were acutely aware of what they were witnessing.
Welch accomplished a feat that no other female wrestler in the state of South Carolina ever has; winning a SCHSL state championship and doing so against a field made up entirely of male wrestlers.
Welch said she did not even fully grasp the enormity of what she had accomplished until later while watching the rest of the matches from the stands.
“It took until I was back in the bleachers, and I saw the other wrestlers compete that I realized I had actually won a state championship,” she admitted.
Welch’s journey into SC wrestling history began when she started competing in the fifth grade. Before that, she practiced the martial art of Jiu-Jitsu, which she has often credited with helping her become a better wrestler.
Even more, the journey led down a deferred path for much of Welch’s sophomore season.
Sidelined by an injury for much of the campaign, Welch returned during region competition in January and immediately took the Wolverines’ conference by storm, winning the individual region championship in the 106-pound weight class, and qualifying for the upper-state tournament.
There, she met De Paz on the mat for the first time in the upper-state finals. He pinned her there, which was only the second loss of the season for Welch.
It would be her last.
That second-place finish was more than enough to qualify June for the state tournament, and from the moment she lost to De Paz, Welch was already planning a new method of attack should she face him again.
“I learned that when I got on a single, not to let go of my lock,” explained Welch. “I knew to keep my elbows in or (De Paz) was going to go for the move that he pinned me with at upper-state.”
Welch started her run at the state championships by dispatching Preston Cederquist of Bishop England. She faced a familiar opponent in the semi-finals, Malachi Conway of Emerald, who she had already defeated during the regular season, and another win.
Defeating Conway set up the rematch Welch had anticipated with De Paz, and this time she was ready.
Woodruff Head Coach John Harper said his message to June before she took to the mat for the final time was simple.
“Just wrestle your match,” said Harper. “Stay technically sound. Wrestle through all the positions, defend the things we worked on in practice from the mistakes you made at upper-state, and defend the front headlock position. She did that very well. The (front headlock) was the first position they ended up in down on the mat at the start of the (championship) match, and she defended that very well. It was wonderful to see that, and that is what allowed her to get the first takedown.”
June took the fight to De Paz from the start, aggressively shooting and working to leverage speed against her opponent. The tactic seemed to catch De Paz off-guard and put him back on his heels, but it was not necessarily how Welch intended to approach the final match until the opportunity presented itself.
“That wasn’t necessarily my plan,” said Welch. “I was just planning to defend his moves, so he didn’t get me with the same move again, and then work on my takedowns.”
De Paz quickly went for his front headlock, which Welch anticipated and easily avoided, then went on the offensive. After grappling for a bit, Welch saw her first opportunity, locked onto De Paz, and took him to the mat.
At that point, Welch said, she realized the outcome of this match would be much different from the first.
“As soon as I got that first takedown, I knew I was going to beat him,” she said.
Harper had a good feeling as well, even earlier in the day, that history was about to be made rather than repeated.
“Just watching her from the first warm-up, you could kind of tell,” Harper said. “The wrestlers were a little nervous their first time in the state tournament. She fought through that and didn’t let the nerves negatively impact her. She channeled it and used it in a positive way. By the way she was moving, you could tell that she was ready to go and ready to wrestle. June does a good job of keeping her focus and staying locked in.”
Harper added, “By the semifinal match, giving up that first takedown and immediately getting a reversal and putting (Conway) on his back, you could tell she wasn’t going to be denied. It was great to see her mindset from start to finish focusing on the task at hand.”
And, frankly, the final task was never in much doubt.
Welch dominated De Paz from start to finish, scoring multiple takedowns and back points and wearing him down bit by bit. The only moment in which the partisan crowd cheering for Welch might have held their breath was when De Paz briefly escaped June’s grasp and scored a reversal in the second period, but Welch quickly recovered and took down her opponent once again.
As the third and final period commenced, the throng of fans, several thousand strong, were all on their feet yelling their support for Welch in unison, and as De Paz relinquished his last ounce of strength and was rolled onto his shoulders for the final time, at that moment, the voices of those in attendance told the story of history being made–HERstory, rather.
If there was anyone who did not know June Welch before, they do now.
“I think maybe some of my opponents in the past might have looked past me,” said Welch. “Now that they know who I am, I don’t know that anyone thinks wrestling against me is going to be easy.”
And that is, more than perhaps, the greatest understatement.
In that fateful, triumphant moment, Harper said he had never heard a crowd galvanized so fervently behind one competitor as he did for Welch that Saturday afternoon.
“I wrestled through high school and college, and I have never seen a crowd really get behind one individual wrestler in that particular manner,” he said. “Obviously, there is a lot of history to it, and you can tell that probably everybody but the Chester team was rooting for June. And I think that gave her a bit more motivation. She went out. She wrestled hard, and she earned that state title. I am so happy for her.”
Woodruff Athletic Director, Michael Morris, himself a former wrestling coach who won two team state championships at Loris in the late 1990s before moving to Woodruff, said June’s victory is not only a great accomplishment for her as an individual and for Woodruff High School, but a watershed moment for female wrestlers across the state and the country.
“I have won state titles as a coach, but this ranks up there with the absolute best,” said Morris. “For June to do what she’s done, being the first female from South Carolina to ever win a state title, it really is amazing.”
Morris continued, “What June accomplished is great, and I think it could really help us grow wrestling, female wrestling especially, in the state of South Carolina and at Woodruff High School. With her doing what she did, it’s big for women’s athletics and it proves with hard work that you can wrestle with the men.”
Welch finished the season with a 15-2 record, a region championship, state championship, and was also named the 3A State Tournament Wrestler of the Year.
But talk to June Welch away from the mat and you will find yourself talking to a quiet, reserved, and in many ways shy, young lady.
By outward appearances, if you did not know June and all that she has accomplished, you might never guess that she is a remarkable championship athlete.
During matches, however, a burning fire erupts from deep within and Welch transforms into a tenacious and determined wrestler who is not afraid to face any opponent, no matter gender, female or male.
Those competitive flames illuminate June’s heart, a champion’s heart, and it is her hope that other girls will follow the path she has carved through a sport that has been long-seen to be male dominated.
More than winning a championship, June has truly leveled the mat and proven that, yes, girls can compete with boys and win.
She may be the first, but June’s wish is that she is far from the last.
“When other girls see me wrestling, I hope it makes them want to wrestle and see that they can be successful, even against boys. I hope it helps them see that they can win and be champions, too.”
