Featured Athlete: Kyra Austin

Sport: Wrestling | Grade: 12

Senior Kyra Austin takes down her opponent at the State Semifinals last year.

Kyra Austin

Senior Kyra Austin takes down her opponent at the State Semifinals last year.

Wingspan: What is your favorite part about wrestling?

Austin: “The individual aspect of the sport, yeah you have team points and you compete as a team but your teammates aren’t on the mat with you so you can’t blame your loss on anyone else.”

Wingspan: What’s the most difficult thing about wrestling?

Austin: “Conditioning and the mental strength to continue on because you get to the point in the third period where your arms are tired and you’re completely dead.”

Wingspan: How difficult is it to keep weight?

Austin: “It’s hard, you have to watch food intake management, just self discipline during season and water intake as well, you’ve got to stay hydrated.”

Wingspan: What’s going to be the biggest difference in high school wrestling versus college?

Austin: “College wrestling is a different style, high school is folk style and college is freestyle which is different scoring, different moves. The intensity is definitely different at the collegiate level so conditioning is going to be hard and weights going to be harder.”

Wingspan: Do you wrestle outside of school?

Austin: “I compete with the team Texas national team and we go up to tournaments and stuff like that together.”

Wingspan: What’s different about competing at school versus outside of school?

Austin: “The different girls that you go against at state and go back in forth with are also a part of your team and we’re one big wrestling family.”

Wingspan: What are the goals for this season?

Austin: “Personally, state champ, as a team, state champs as well, regional champs and district chan=ms and we want to have more that four state placers this year.”