Lincoln-Way West junior Zoe Dempsey is like a force accelerant every time she wrestles.
A skilled and advanced practitioner of judo since age 7, she has all the right moves.
“In judo, if you throw your opponent to their back, the match ends because you win,” she said. ”I like how in wrestling, the only way to completely end a match is pretty much if you pin them.
“There’s always a chance to fight back and a turn a match around for yourself.”
Dempsey kept things on the upturn Wednesday, improving her record to 12-1 for the Lincoln-Way co-op team with a 17-2 win by technical fall over Andrew sophomore Keira Zamudio.
The dual match, a 69-6 win for Lincoln-Way, was the first in history for the nascent cooperative program featuring wrestlers from Lincoln-Way Central, Lincoln-Way East and Lincoln-Way West.
The Andrew co-op program features District 230 wrestlers from Sandburg and Stagg.
Andrew is clearly a contender for a state title, having already posted tournament championships at Minooka and Fremd. After finishing fifth at the prestigious Ironman Invitational in Iowa, the team’s top wrestlers were held out for rest.
Sandburg junior Nancy Hererra averted the shutout with a fall in the second period at 235 pounds.
Dempsey, meanwhile, has gone up against some of the best athletes in the world at her age division competing in the 48-kilogram weight division.
She’s taken part at international tournaments in Lima, Peru and Hong Kong and then last summer at the Pan Am Championships in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The experience has been essential to her development as a top-notch wrestler.
“I feel like I’m a lot better emotionally prepared for the sport now,” she said. “I just realized that no matter who I’m fighting, I’ve trained a lot harder than them.
“No matter who I go up against, I don’t try to look at what they’ve accomplished anymore. I just face them head on and take the match as it comes.”
Wrestling exclusively last season at Lincoln-Way West, Dempsey finished 20-7 and took fifth in the state at 105.
Lincoln-Way Central junior Riley Cooney, her training partner, said Dempsey is open to learning from her mistakes.
”If she’s in a weird scramble, she is very adaptive to getting back on top and getting into a good position,” Clooney said. “She always brings the energy up in the room. She’s a great leader.
“Off the mat, she always has a good attitude and always helps others get their attitudes up.”
Lincoln-Way coach Joshua Napier has observed Dempsey’s rapid ascension since she was in seventh grade learning the basics.
“Zoe’s getting there,” Napier said. “Her first year and a half, she didn’t win a match. She took on a lot of boys and got beat up a lot and probably asked whether this was for her.
“She’s still learning. Her judo background is really helpful. She’s very good at creating positions that are not as comfortable for other people.”
Now, success has yielded ever greater confidence. She knows she’s not an interloper.
“I won the sectional my freshman year and realized I belonged in this sport,” Dempsey said. “That gave me even more motivation to work in the offseason, do some freestyle tournaments and come back even stronger.”
Her only loss this season came last weekend in the 110-pound championship of the Dan Gable Donneybrook in Iowa.
”Like judo, there’s always more to do and more steps to take forward,” she said. ”At the Pan Am Games in Rio, I lost my first match to a girl who ended up getting fifth in the world.
“I learned a lot from her and I got to see how much further I have to go.”
Patrick Z. McGavin is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
