River Bluff sophomore Sophia Voudouris was the only girl on the River Bluff wrestling team during her freshman season. 

Voudouris had just moved to town and was welcomed with open arms. She had a successful year qualifying for the state final and was excited to return this year and improve. 

While she enjoyed her year wrestling alongside and against the boys, it was a much different experience than wrestling with girls. So, Voudouris, her family and River Bluff head coach Luke Jordan began putting together a team.

“ Sophia's parents kept telling me that they really wanted her to have like an outlet, a team to be on other than just boys, and I knew that if I could get the girls, I could make a successful girls wrestling team,” Jordan said. “When I started teaching, I just started asking, I was like ‘Hey, you’d make a pretty good wrestler. Hey, you should come out in the summer.’ I think I had eight come out and just try it, and they kept wrestling over the summer, and they just got so good. Now we have a team of 13.”

The administration and community at River Bluff were incredibly supportive of starting a team, Jordan said. While the SCHSL was hesitant at first, school principal Jacob Smith fought hard, even sending a letter to the state house. Eventually, the team was sanctioned and allowed to begin this season. 

Just a few months later, the Gators are now one of the best girl’s wrestling teams in the state... The Gator girls had a great season going undefeated in duel matches and placing highly at many tournaments. 

The team was at state qualifiers last weekend and had six athletes advance to the individual title meet, including Voudouris. 

Jordan said he saw the potential from his group early on. The team went out in preseason and easily beat some of the state’s top-ranked teams at the time. 

“ Hartsville was ranked 14th at the time, and then Blythewood was the returning third-place team in the state. We had never even wrestled a dual match,” Jordan said.  “I think we beat them both by 30. I looked at the girls, and I was just like, ‘This doesn't just happen.’”

The girls continued to improve as the season progressed and began climbing the coaches rankings, going from unranked in the preseason to No. 2 in the latest poll. 

The group spent the season working on their conditioning and focusing on technique. They displayed their ability to dominate opponents and overcome adversity multiple times. 

During a tournament at Chesnee, the team was short-handed due to illness. Only nine wrestlers were available to compete. There were nine pools in the contest. 

Of the nine pools, River Bluff took first place in seven of them and finished third in the other two. 

“ I just knew that these girls were absolutely, tremendously tough and that no matter who I put them out against, even if they were wrestling ranked girls, they just kept showing up,” Jordan said. 

Through all of the tough matches, wins and losses, the girls have been there for each other. Voudouris described the group as close-knit.

“ We like to laugh a lot. We hang out outside of wrestling. It's really close-knit,” she said. “After hard practices and stuff, just going through that makes you really close.”

Voudouris is one of three captains on the team. The other two are also highly-ranked wrestlers Malyn Gentry and Amy Robinson. 

Gentry and Robinson are both wrestling for the first time.

Gentry was interested in wrestling due to her martial arts background. She also does jiu-jitsu and heard good things about wrestling and wanted to give it a try. 

“Even though the sport itself is different, I think the feeling of competing is the same,” Gentry said. “I'm just used to being on the mat. And I can use a lot of the things I've learned from my experience.” 

Robinson originally was a basketball player but felt it wasn’t as physical as she would have liked. She credits her friend and teammate Chesney Williams for convincing her to give wrestling a shot. 

“ When my coach asked me, I told him no,” Robinson said. “Chesney was like, ‘Yeah, I want to wrestle.’ And I was like ‘If you wrestle, I'll wrestle. We can wrestle together.’ And so, we joined at the same time.”

Voudouris, Gentry and Robinson all qualified for the individual state finals. Voudouris and Robinson won the Upper State title for their weight division, and Gentry finished third in hers. 

Savannah Parrett also qualified after finishing second. Gracie Beaulieu and Kyrra Shipman-Lutz also earned a spot with 4th place finishes in their divisions.

The Gators begin the duals state tournament this weekend with a meet at White Knoll. That will make up the first and second rounds. Should the team advance, they would then advance to the championship round at Dreher High School on Feb. 8. 

While Jordan acknowledged the team is facing high expectations, he said winning or losing a championship wouldn’t define the year the team has had. 

“ A lot of people put pressure on it now. I know a lot of people have mentioned that we can win states, and we can … We match up really well against anybody and these girls are tough,” Jordan said. “But no matter where we finish up, I'm proud of them. I mean, we're just somewhere nobody thought we ever would have been.” 

This year has always been about getting things off the ground. The group will head into the offseason and work to get even better for next year. The team may even attend the Iowa Hawkeye wrestling camp, one of the top camps in the country. 

With the team's early success, Jordan said the next step was to grow the team and convince even more girls to try something new. 

“ I think when girls see that all these first-year girls that came out and just put in work, made state finals or pushed themselves to qualify for states … I just hope it brings more girls out,” Jordan said. “I hope they see that and are like, ‘Hey, none of these girls had training and maybe I can do the same thing.’ Because they can, any of these girls can. They just need to put in the time and learn the technique, and we can get them to where they need to be.”