Mountain View wrestler Kaley Barker was leaning up against a brick wall in the bowels of the Pepsi Center when Greeley Central’s Ben Euresti very quickly approached and ever-so-gently embraced her with a compliment.
“I just lost to him,” Barker said laughing about the brief encounter with her wrestling opponent.
Sure, the sophomore fell by a 15-1 majority decision in the Class 4A 106-pound weight class preliminary round at the Colorado high school state wrestling tournament Thursday night. But she still made one of the biggest statements at the tournament as just the seventh female wrestler to qualify for the tournament in state history.
She is part of the growing culture of female wrestlers. And while they may all get into the sport for entirely different reasons, Barker comes from a family of wrestlers, and started when she was very young.
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“My dad was a two-time state champion and my brother got into it, and then I got into it,” Barker said of why she wrestles. “I retired around age 8, but then watching my brother be so successful, I thought, I could do that and I could be there with him doing that.”
Her twin brother, Braden, qualified for the tournament in the 4A 170-pound weight class, making them the first boy-girl twins to qualify together. They are coached by their father, Scott, who won state titles at Wray — something Barker claims she and her brother didn’t even realize until last year.
“It calmed me down just knowing my family has been here a ton of times,” she said of competing at such a large tournament.
Barker (23-18) will wrestle again Friday in the consolation bracket against Evergreen junior Connor Williams (20-9). She still has the opportunity to place as high as third in the tournament. Out of the six who have competed before her, no female wrestler has ever placed in the state tournament.
Morgan Dzakowic: 303-954-1275, mdzakowic@denverpost.com or @morgandzak