AVON LAKE, Ohio — When Rejan Alhashash was a freshman, she had never wrestled before. A chance trip to the wrestling room has since led her to a passion for the sport, and a history-making moment for Avon Lake High School and Lorain County.
Alhashash was helping a coach find a student who might want to wrestle on the boy's team, looking around her classmates for someone in the weight class needed. When she walked into the wrestling room, she saw something she didn't expect.
"I came after school to the wrestling room and gave [the coach] a couple of names of people that I thought would be able to join," she said. "There was other girls practicing, so there was Hattie Rose Hobar who's now my drill partner and best friend too so that's kind of how it started. And I just came back every day."
Alhashash gave wrestling a shot, and once she hit the mat, there was no looking back.
"First day she came into the room, she came, she rolled around for a little bit and she just fell in love with the sport," said coach Dennis Copfer. "And from that day forward, she did, she's done nothing but wrestle."
For the past three years, Alhashash has watched the sport she's come to love flourish. More girls joined the squad and in 2022, the Ohio High School Athletic Association announced girls wrestling as a state-sanctioned sport.
"It's a good experience not only for me, but for other girls who are younger now that they get to have a sanctioned sport," she said.
For the first time in Ohio, girls wrestling units were able to compete and go to states. Alhashash has found herself in the newly added tournaments, but this year, she made history.
Wrestling at 140, Alhashash recently won her matchup against a competitor from Gahanna-Lincoln High School, earning her first place and the state championship.
Alhashash not only became the first girl to win a wrestling state championship at Avon Lake High School, she's the first to do so in Lorain County.
"She deserves to be the first to do this because she has just done nothing but promote the sport, be an ambassador for the sport," Copfer said.
Alhashash is proud of her accomplishment but, at her core, is more excited about the prospect of her title helping inspire the next wave of girl wrestlers.
"Anything is possible. I mean, if you asked me four or five years ago, 'Hey, do you think you'd be a state champ, do you think you'd even wrestle?' I'd probably be like, 'Oh, you're crazy,'" Alhashash said. "Know anything is possible and that the hard work does pay off, even when no one's looking.
