Most of the roads to Ball Arena had bumps. Not Janessa George’s.
Oh, no.
George’s had potholes.
“We’ve been at this since she was in kindergarten, watching her, just, you know, get beat up,” Sandra George, proud mother of Janessa, a junior wrestler from Chatfield High, recalled Friday with a chuckle.
“And then I’m like, ‘One day, girl, you’re going to be doing the beating. One day. Don’t know if itap going to be right now, but someday, itap going to be this.’ĝ
Someday is — well, itap several days now.
Heading into Friday nightap girls state wrestling semifinals, Janessa George had won seven of her last eight competitive wrestling matches since Jan. 22 by a fall, according to TrackWrestling.com.
“I mean, she’s worked her butt off to get there,” Sandra said of her daughter. “Itap priceless.”
Until the semis, it was darn near flawless, too.
The younger George’s season record at 111 pounds dipped to 40-2 with a 5-2 loss to Jefferson’s Shayla Gallegos, having reached the semifinals earlier in the day with a pin of Discovery Canyon’s Mia Thorne.
Up to that point, for a first-time grappler at Ball Arena (“Itap definitely bigger on the inside,” Janessa said of the downtown Denver staple), she’d handled the bright lights just fine.
It was Mom who was the wreck.
“She keeps calm. But (we) also trained her really well to take that anxiety and just push it towards (the opponent), like fuel,” Sandra said, chuckling again.
“I get so nervous. I’m usually sitting there with my legs crossed. And my hands are sweaty and my knuckles are white.”
Did we mention that Mom’s also the coach?
“But I love it,” Sandra said.
“I love watching her. She just put everything she has in it.”
From kindergarten to Saturday’s consolations, as one of the 2022 tourney’s premier mother-daughter combos, the pair’s logged a lot of miles together over the last decade.
A heck of a lot of bruises, too. Including a few to their respective egos.
“There have been (a few) fights back and forth,” laughed Janessa, who’d reached state finals at 105 pounds in the 2021 and 2020 girls tourneys, only to finish just short of a title on both occasions.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s just a mix. It’s not too bad. Since she’s wrestled, she understands.
“It’s not just like, wrestler and coach, parent on the side. She’s helped me a lot. It’s been more listening to her rather than just ignoring everything.”
If anything, Janessa was born for this moment, born for this stage. Mom and dad met during high school in Michigan, where they both wrestled. After moving to Colorado, the family set up a wrestling room, padded from wall to wall, next to the garage.
For Janessa and two scrapping, strapping brothers, that refuge settled a lot of arguments. And probably saved some furniture along the way, too.
“It’s like that the Cadillac that’s in the in the garage that nobody, nobody drives or touches. That’s our wrestling room,” Sandra said. “So we have it there for, you know, when the apocalypse comes and you can just go in there and wrestle.”
Mother knows best.
“I mean, (at Chatfield), we had Savannah Cosme (win state at 120 pounds) last year,” Sandra said. “And we fought so hard to get there and then to just give her everything that she needed. So this year, to be here with my own daughter, is priceless.”
