Yianna Foufas, Mepham High School wrestler, earns state title at first all-girls tournament
Bellmore-Merrick's female wrestlers break barriers in male-dominated sport
Yianna Foufas, a junior at Wellington C. Mepham High School, captured a state title in wrestling at the first New York State Public High School Athletic Association Girls Wrestling Invitational last month in Syracuse. Foufas, 16, said she hoped her success would inspire other girls to get involved in male-dominated sports.
The USA Wrestling Girls High School Development Committee recently recognized New York as the 37th state to host a sanctioned high school wrestling tournament for girls.
Foufas isn’t the only female wrestler in the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District. Talia Robles, also of Mepham, and Gabriella Schechtman, of Kennedy High, are two more trailblazers, and all three competed in the Syracuse invitational on Jan. 27, alongside more than 200 other female wrestlers from across the state, 33 of them from Long Island.
Foufas placed first in the 114-pound weight class.
“All of the girls were very good and strong,” she said of her competitors. “I was very impressed with everyone’s work ethic on the mat.”
She defeated the 10th-ranked wrestler in the nation in her weight class, 2-0, in the finals, scoring with just 16 seconds left in what was a highly anticipated and competitive match.
“We are extremely proud of Yianna for all she has accomplished,” Mepham coach Ken Richards said. “Yianna has worked tremendously hard in the wrestling room and in the off-season to get where she is today. It’s great to see hard work pay off.”
Foufas and Robles have competed in other girls-only tournaments in the past. In December 2021, they were the first female wrestlers in Mepham’s history to compete in an all-girls tournament, at Copiague High School.
Foufas previously told the Herald that she wasn’t always interested in sports. “In early elementary school, I sucked at all sports,” she recounted. “I was always the kid that got picked last — I did not want to be in sports at all.”
In an effort to make herself faster and stronger, she said, she started running and working out during recess. Toward the end of elementary school, she started to learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu and strength training. “I said to myself, ‘Hey, I’m pretty strong for a girl,’” Foufas recalled.
And it didn’t take long for her to discover her passion for wrestling. “I went from the kid who sucked at all sports to the girl wrestler,” she said. Before she wrestled at Mepham, she was on the Grand Avenue Middle School team.
Her win upstate isn’t going unnoticed in Bellmore-Merrick. The district’s athletic director, Eric Caballero, said that Foufas’s state title came in a sport that is one of the most difficult to compete in.
“She’s always seeking the highest challenge,” Richards said. “She never stops moving, and is constantly looking for different ways to become a better wrestler and just become a stronger athlete in general.”
Off the mat, Foufas said, she tends to be very shy, and focuses on her other passion: art. An avid artist with an interest in fashion design, she joked that her outside interests were “very different from wrestling.” For half of the school day, she attends the Long Island High School for the Arts.
Once on the mat, however, she said, she becomes more aggressive and feels like a different person. In addition to competing in all-girls tournaments, she has wrestled against boys as well. Wrestling, she said, is about breaking stereotypes.
“People always ask me how it is wrestling all boys, and what I say is that the moment you step on the mat, everyone is equal,” Foufas previously told the Herald. “The thing I love about it is that most people think all girls who wrestle are tomboys — it’s just a stereotype.”
Looking ahead, she said, she wants to pursue both of her passions, wrestling and art, in college. “If there’s any girl who’s looking into getting into a combat sport or a male-dominant sport and they’re afraid, I would like to tell them just to go for it,” Foufas said. “It could be the best thing that happens to them.
“There’s just something so magical about having your hand raised — it’s a hard sport, and I have a lot of respect for everyone in it.”
Additional reporting by Jordan Vallone.
