Kamiak girls wrestling camp aims to increase involvement

Published 10:30 am Thursday, July 2, 2026

EVERETT — Ally de la Cruz remembers what it was like being one of the only girls on the Kamiak wrestling team. She remembers going to tournaments and watching other schools roll in with a large girls team. She remembers those girls rallying around each other like a family, and missing out on that experience.

Nearly 10 years after her junior season, when she won the 2017 State Championship in the Girls Class 4A, 155-pound division to highlight a decorated career that included four district titles and four state placements, de la Cruz finally felt that at the Kamiak girls wrestling camp, where she served as one of the instructors.

“It’s really nice to see some of the girls on the team and see how much they love the community that it’s creating,” de la Cruz said.

The camp, which took place from Tuesday to Thursday at Mariner High School, marked the latest development for a Kamiak girls wrestling program that more than tripled in size this past season under head coach John Knight-Baldwin, who coached de la Cruz as an assistant in the Kamiak program during her time there.

The three-day camp was not exclusively for Kamiak wrestlers and experienced high-schoolers. Knight-Baldwin opened registration for girls in Grades 1-12, although the youngest age group that participated was 4th-6th grade, according to the camp’s sign-up data. Of the 24 sign-ups, eight were beginners, and 12 had just 1-2 years of experience. The 13 pre-high school campers narrowly outnumbered the ones in high school (11).

While the camp intended to help wrestlers of any experience level develop their skills and technique, the primary goal was to create a fun atmosphere that would encourage future involvement and grow the sport.

“I don’t care if anyone actually learns a wrestling move over the next three days,” Knight-Baldwin said. “I care that they want to come back and wrestle more. I want to develop a love for the sport. The technique and stuff is going to be there if they keep showing up. That will come one way or another, but you can be way too intense, you can drive people away, or you can just get people hurt because they weren’t ready yet, so that’s what I want to focus on is, ‘Hey, I did this really cool thing over the summer. I should tell my friends about it, and then I’ll wrestle this season.’”

That said, the camp featured a murderer’s row of instructors for the girls to learn from. In addition to de la Cruz, Woodinville coach Sophie Averill, Oak Harbor assistant Izzy Valles and Kamiak alum Rebecca Serati served as clinicians throughout the three days.

Averill won a district championship as an Everett High School senior in 2020, and she was named Darrel Whitmore Female Coach of the Year in 2026. Valles finished as a state runner-up in California in 2015 and was later named a NAIA All-American in college. Serati won a district title at Kamiak and placed at Mat Classic twice before graduating in 2024.

“I think that this is just a really good place for (campers) to learn, to see if they like it, and give them a chance to try it out,” said rising Kamiak senior Lillian Burgess, who won a district title in 2024 and represented one of the more experienced participants this week. “There’s some girls in there that are actually really liking it so far, and I think could be really good because now they might want to wrestle at their school. These are stepping stones to creating a better future for women’s wrestling, and I think that’s really nice.”

While most of the campers were from the Everett/Mukilteo area, Alexis Ward traveled all the way from Davenport, located about 35 miles west of Spokane. The rising junior took the trip with her mother, Kasey, who saw an advertisement for the camp on Facebook. Kasey Ward teaches in Davenport and coaches multiple middle school sports, but she’s also focused on building up girls wrestling at the high school. Like de la Cruz 10 years ago, Alexis Ward is one of only a few girls on the team.

The Wards had been looking for more wrestling training geared specifically toward girls, and Kamiak’s three-day camp appealed to them, even if it meant a five-hour drive each way. As much as Alexis learned on the mat, Kasey tried soaking up as much knowledge as she could to bring back to Davenport.

“(Alexis) spent a lot of time wrestling with boys and with the boys coaches, which are great. They’re great coaches, but now we’re starting to get into the ‘girl-only’ thing,” Kasey Ward said. “It’s just kind of opened up a whole new— like she’s made tons of friends. She’s building confidence, so it’s been great.”

In addition to using Facebook to spread the word, Knight-Baldwin reached out to fellow coaches and local media. Attendance for all three days cost $150 for each camper, but the school also raised funds to contribute to the operation.

Each day lasted from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a pair of two-hour sessions split by an hour for lunch in between. De la Cruz led the afternoon session on Tuesday, drawing on her previous coaching experience. Following her graduation from Kamiak in 2017, de la Cruz attended Western Washington University and volunteered under coach Brian Porteous for the then-Bellingham United wrestling program that combined Sehome, Bellingham and Squalicum High School into one girls team.

De la Cruz would stop by a couple of times per week to help out, but that stopped when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. She moved to Yakima in 2021 to attend Pacific Northwest University for her master’s degree before sticking around to pursue her medical degree at the College of Medicine. Once again, she managed to squeeze in occasional volunteer coaching at nearby Davis High School. De la Cruz would love to come back and lead Kamiak’s program one day, but her future residency location could put that out of her hands.

Regardless, she had a clear idea about what she wanted to impart on the campers during her session: Get down to basics.

“I told Baldwin earlier, ‘I think I only did five moves, ever, always.’ I was just really good at those five moves,” de la Cruz said. “So really, basics win matches. So if you’re really good at the basics, then you’re going to do well. I’d also like to get them working on chaining their moves together because if you can do five moves and hit all five back-to-back-to-back without stopping, that’s going to be what really wins those matches for you.”

After putting the campers through a dynamic warmup, de la Cruz went step-by-step, teaching how to execute a Snatch Single takedown, then instructed how to defend against it. She also worked the group through reps out of the referee’s position, teaching the basics for how to maintain control from top and how to escape from bottom.

Afterwards, de la Cruz set up a game of ‘Capture the Shoe,’ which is effectively a version of Capture the Flag where the wrestlers have to remain on their knees while attacking and defending with wrestling moves. Each team attempts to bring the opponent’s shoe back to its side.

Knight-Baldwin emphasized the importance of incorporating games such as ‘Capture the Shoe’ within the camp programming to help create a fun atmosphere. However, the most important thing in his eyes was campers seeing de la Cruz and the rest of the accomplished clinicians leading the way.

“I think it’s completely different for someone like (de la Cruz) to teach girls that, ‘Hey, you can come wrestle because I did it,’” Knight-Baldwin said. “Whereas me, I’m a boy, I’m not exactly who they want to be when they grow up — at least I don’t think so — but Ally can be. She had that experience. She wrestled with the boys. She found her strength. I think it makes it real. … Ally was a wrestler, and they can follow in her footsteps.”