The Sentinel

Off-season work pays off; St. Joseph-Ogden's Maddie Wells heads to state wrestling

Photo: Sentinel/Clark Brooks

St. Joseph-Ogden's Maddie Wells (left) wrestles Urbana's Rickasia Ivy in dual meet in December. Wells and Ivy, who took second place, qualified for the IHSA Girls Individual Wrestling State Finals in Bloomington Feb. 28 - Mar. 1.

HIGHLAND - At the beginning of the season in December, when asked what she wanted to accomplish this season, St. Joseph-Ogden's Maddie Wells said, "I'm really hoping to qualify for girls' state for the first time." Mission accomplished.

Wells, a junior who started wrestling three years ago, is a warrior. Yesterday, she became the first St. Joseph-Ogden female athlete to qualify for the IHSA's Girls Wrestling State Finals. Finishing third in the 140-pound division, the junior's grueling path through the bracket to punch her ticket to the state tournament in Bloomington was sealed after six matches at the Highland Sectional.

"I was kind of in disbelief and I was happy for all my friends that I’ve made along the way that also qualified," Wells said after her third-place finish. "I was most excited to eat Chipotle, though."

Except for her quarterfinal loss to Collinsville's Taylor Dawson, who won the sectional title in their division, Wells won four matches by fall and recorded a techfall in her consolation semifinal win over Mt. Vernon's Daniya Musgrave.

Mentally and emotionally, she said her first match of sectionals was the most stressful.

"My qualification match was my toughest," she admitted. "My previous two years I had been knocked out in this round so I was the most nervous."

Wells won her sectional opener, pinning Salem's Alan Finney at 1:44. Her quarterfinal loss to Dawson lasted 42 seconds. She bounced back from the defeat to win her next four bouts.

All the work Wells put in during the off-season paid dividends. She heads to the state tournament at Grossinger Motors Arena with an 18-6 record.

"I do a lot of open gyms," she said. She also attended camps at the University of Illinois during the summer to sharpen her technical skills. "And, I did some off-season girls tournaments."

Now a trailblazer for the Spartan girls' program and one of two girls on this year's squad, she hopes that her success will influence other female athletes to join the sport.

"I feel privileged to be able to pave the path but I feel excited to see the girls that follow," she said. "I hope I inspired girls younger than me to not be afraid of trying new things despite their gender and being able to follow their dreams."

Maddie Wells sectional match results:

Champ. Round 1 - Maddie Wells won by fall over Alana Finney, Salem - Fall 1:44
Quarterfinal - Taylor Dawson, Collinsville 32-3 won by fall over Maddie Wells - Fall 0:42
Cons. Round 2 - Maddie Wells won by fall over Kaisley Shotkoski, Mahomet-Seymour - Fall 1:15
Cons. Round 3 - Maddie Wells won by fall over Jacee Mardirosian, Carterville - Fall 3:34
Cons. Semi - Maddie Wells won by tech fall over Daniya Musgrave, Mt. Vernon - TF-1.5 2:18 18-0
3rd Place Match - Maddie Wells won by fall over Lillien Roughton, Unity Christian - Fall 3:09

Strength training can help women live longer, healthier lives

by Paul Arco
OSF Healthcare

ROCKFORD - It’s no great surprise to read that men and women both benefit from working out.

But women may receive greater benefits from regular exercise than men, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Photo provided

Mary O’Meara
OSF Cardiovascular Institute

The study centered on the importance of exercise as a way to avoid dying prematurely. The researchers studied data from 400,000 people and found that women who exercised were 24% less likely to die early from any cause. Men who exercised, however, were 15% less likely to die early.

The study also revealed that the women who exercise had a 36% lower risk of dying from a cardiovascular event, compared to men at 14%. That’s important because women have twice the risk of dying from a heart attack than a man.

Mary O’Meara is a nurse practitioner with OSF HealthCare. She says society still views heart attacks more as a man’s disease. That’s simply not true.

“Usually, a male is feeling this really bad chest pressure, chest pain going in the left arm into the jaw, very pale. Women, very often, will just complain of fatigue, nausea or heartburn. ‘I feel wiped out. I just can't walk across the room. I need to sit down,’” explains O’Meara. “Unfortunately, that can be a sign of a heart attack in a female, and it gets missed quite often.”

While any movement is good, O’Meara stresses the importance of women incorporating strength and/or resistance training, such as lifting weights. Frequency and the amount of weight depend on the person and their situation.

Photo: MovePrivateFitness/Pixabay

“For a long time, women were encouraged to do more aerobics-calisthenics. We were always thought of as the weaker sex, I guess you can say, and we weren't really encouraged to do any weight bearing exercise,” says O’Meara. “A lot of research has come back that states that women should be focusing on weight bearing exercises for several different reasons.”

Strength training can also help women as menopause becomes an issue. According to O’Meara, hormones start changing between the ages of 40 and 50 – a time when women start losing muscle and see an increase in body fat. Strength training can help with that change, along with other health issues.

“We found that weight bearing exercise can reduce our risk of dementia and Alzheimer's, and also reduce our risk of osteoporosis, which is a big one,” says O’Meara.

O’Meara also has a nutrition tip for her patients. Protein, she says, is important for women to prevent muscle loss, especially during menopause. O’Meara recommends 30 milligrams of protein before and 15 milligrams after a workout, to help rebuild muscle that has been naturally broken-down during exercise.

Additionally, O'Meara is a proponent of healthy fats. She encourages patients to incorporate grape seed oils, olive oils, fish oils, flax seed oils, nuts and avocados into their diets. Her philosophy is that good fats battle bad fats, and good fats protect our heart.

O’Meara stresses that it's never too late for women to start exercising. Even a short walk or work around the home, for instance, can go a long way to a healthier future.

“You read many testimonials from people who were couch potatoes and never exercised,” she says. “And then, they go into these exercises and do wonderful things that have really made a difference.”

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