These two KC-area athletes will be wrestling internationally with Team USA this summer

Kansas City-area wrestlers Maddie Kubicki and Haley Ward recently completed an experiential week of camp at the U.S. Olympic training center as they prepare to take their talents abroad this summer.

Both four-time Missouri state champions — Kubicki at Park Hill South, Ward at Fort Osage — have exciting opportunities to improve their skills via international competition while inspiring girls who will come after them.

In April, Ward, 18, finished second in the U20 72-kilogram bracket at the Women’s National Championships and World Team Trials in Spokane, Washington. She will join Team USA for the Pan-American Championships July 6-8 in Santiago, Chile. She previously claimed medals in the 2019 U15 Pan-Am in Panama and in the U20 Pan-Am last year in Mexico.

Kubicki, also 18, won the U20 65-kilogram bracket in Spokane, landing her on Team USA for the Grand Prix of Spain July 7-9 in Madrid and the United World Wrestling U20 World Championships Aug. 14-20 in Warsaw, Poland. She medaled at the Cadet and Junior Pan-Am in Mexico in 2021 but expects these trans-Atlantic trips to provide a new level of competition.

“I’m kind of just intrigued just to see what it’ll be like, because I’ve never gone out internationally, except for Mexico, but I’ve never been over (to) the Europe side,” Kubicki said. “I feel like that’ll be really interesting to be able to see that aspect of it and to see all these different competitors, all these different women who are wrestling.”

Long before she even thought about European opposition, Kubicki’s initial challenger was Ward. They first wrestled each other when they were about 7 or 8 years old, Ward said, at a time where few other area girls were interested in hand-fighting and takedowns.

“It was very interesting coming up through youth with only one other girl, but we have a good relationship because of that,” Ward said. “And I feel like she also feels the same way about more girls coming in, and just girls wrestling growing.”

Kubicki and Ward’s careers started similarly as well: through their dads.

Kubicki’s father wrestled in high school and got her brother going. She went along to practices to run and play and eventually joined right in.

Ward had to fight for her shot. Her father helped with the high school team and post-practice mat club at Fort Osage. He’d make her run and warm up with the team, or even “be the test dummy” if a boy needed a partner ... but by no means was she to wrestle.

Finally, she convinced him to let her into a tournament, on one condition — no crying, or she was finished.

“He was hoping that I was gonna get my butt kicked,” Ward said, “But I won the tournament.”

From there, Kubicki and Ward blossomed: The former went 157-0 in high school, the latter 172-1 — with her only loss coming against Kubicki as a sophomore.

The sport has flourished around them. The Missouri State High School Activities Association this year expanded girls wrestling to two classifications — big-school and small-school — thanks to increased participation.

Park Hill South started with two or three girls on its wrestling team but had around 20 the last two years, according to Kubicki. Local tournaments like Kansas City Stampede, where boys and girls compete alongside each other on numerous mats, Ward said, help elevate the sport and its atmosphere.

“It’s exciting, because whenever I started I was six and it was just me and like maybe one other girl (Kubicki) ever at any tournaments,” Ward said. “So seeing all these girls start wrestling just makes me really excited. I actually just did a little kids camp, and there were girls there and I got to teach them, and I was happy about that because I never had that whenever I was coming through.”

Beyond high school competition, there are 124 U.S. colleges with women’s wrestling teams, according to a count from August 2022. The hope is that women’s college wrestling keeps growing, in tandem with the demand for diverse educational offerings for its student-athletes.

Ward is pursuing a nursing career, but several of the schools she visited for women’s wrestling didn’t have that program, or only offered an alternative that seemed more strenuous.

Fortunately, Iowa, which became the first Power Five school to add women’s wrestling in 2021, reached out late in her recruiting process and secured her commitment. Her academic goals feel more attainable in Iowa City, which boasts a strong nursing program and a sizable local children’s hospital. However, she’d still like to see more schools with women’s wrestling improving their degree opportunities.

Kubicki expressed confidence that with time, more robust universities will have women’s wrestling teams. She noted speculation that Missouri could add a squad if it found another men’s sports to institute.

Kubicki is committed to Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, which became the first Division I university to add a women’s wrestling team in 2017. Self-described as “picky from the start” of her recruiting process, she knew it was the perfect fit in terms of competition and team environment.

She’ll be studying biology and possibly following up with either nursing or medical school. She’s interested in potentially becoming a graduate-assistant coach at the end of her career to help advance the sport even more.

All told, it’s an exhilarating time to be leading the charge into the future of women’s wrestling.

“I had to have other women above me pioneer for me to be able to be at the point I am and to be able to do this for all the other younger girls,” Kubicki said. “It’s amazing.

“I feel like it’s also partly true of how girls wrestling is also kind of just saving the sport in general and saving men’s wrestling because it’s something new, something exciting. It’s getting more people involved and just curious about the sport. But it’s just very exciting to be able to see and be a part of the growth for the whole wrestling community.”

The international tournaments this summer will continue to fuel the rise of female wrestling. During that preparatory training camp in Colorado Springs, Kubicki, Ward and others practiced two to three times a day, studied film, received nutritional instruction and familiarized themselves with new coaches and teammates ahead of their respective events.

Kubicki next heads to Madrid, where she’ll wrestle at the senior level three to four times in one day before attending a five-day camp. It may be taxing, but she believes the experience and heightened competition will pay dividends in Poland and beyond.

Ward lands in Santiago on July 5 for practice July 6, takes the mat on July 7 and then makes a speedy return home. Like all those years ago at that tournament her dad thought she had no chance of winning, she’s focused on the endgame.

“I’m just expecting to really get sucked in,” Ward said. “It’s not gonna be like, ‘Oh, let’s go shopping’ or ‘Let’s go look at stuff.’

“It’s definitely a business trip.”