Seaford's Ashley Diaz notches a first at state wrestling tournament

Some years from now, you could be mentioning Ashley Diaz in the same breath as Ronda Rousey — or perhaps, more accurately, Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler Helen Maroulis, Diaz’s hero.

Diaz, a junior at Seaford High School, is one of the first three girls to win a state championship in wrestling in New York — in her case, the 120-pound division.

Diaz is a lifelong Seaford resident, having gone to Harbor Elementary School, Seaford Middle School, and now the high school. She is also a lifelong fighter, who began officially wrestling at school in seventh grade. She had trained in sixth grade at Wantagh Youth Wrestling, and before that she had trained in Brazilian jiu jitsu for as long as she can remember.

“I originally was a swimmer, and our school didn’t have a swim team,” Diaz said. “I knew I wanted to participate in a sport, so I tried wrestling and it stuck. And I liked it more than swimming.”

Diaz trained under coach Ray Hanley at Wantagh Youth Wrestling, and recalls winning a match against a boy of similar size.

“I felt bad,” Diaz said. “But Coach Hanley told my dad, ‘She’s gonna do this on the team.’”

Diaz fought through the youth season in the program before starting seventh grade. There is only one wrestling team in the high school, and it welcomes both female and male wrestlers. Under the tutelage of Seaford wrestling coach David Takseraas, Diaz has developed a high-powered offense that keeps her in every match, no matter how well her opponent is doing.

“She shoots for the legs often,” Takseraas said. “She’s definitely an offensive wrestler. We have some wrestlers that are more defensive, but Ashley is aggressive. So she always puts points on the board, and that’s why she’s in every match — because she can score.”

Wrestling can be won either by pins or on points — through takedowns, escapes, and reversals at the end of three periods. Pins are like a win by knockout in boxing — once the pin is successful, the match is over, regardless of how much time is left.

“I do have a favorite move,” Diaz said. “But I don’t want it published, although anyone who watches my matches could probably tell what it is.”

The state competition took place in Syracuse on Jan. 27. Diaz was the two-seed in a division of 16 wrestlers, and had four matches. She won all four of them by pin in a dominant display.

“They do seeding based on credentials,” Takseraas said. “In the final, she faced the one seed. It was a good match. Ashley scored first, then her opponent tied up the score, before Ashley got the pin in the third period.”

Diaz’s season is still not over. Counties are coming up, with the competition being officially set for Feb. 11. And, since she’s a junior, Diaz’s varsity career is still far from over — although she does have her sights on collegiate wrestling.

“In the offseason, I’m going to be wrestling at a bunch of national competitions outside of school,” Diaz said. “Hopefully I’ll get officially ranked by USA Wrestling. That’s the next step.”

Diaz has kept her eye on girls’ wrestling at several colleges, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Northeastern University, both of which could offer promising futures for female wrestlers.

“Ashley is a credit to Seaford,” Kevin Witt, Seaford’s athletic director, said. “She’s a credit to the coaches and all the kids they embrace. It makes the whole process for other kids in every sport so much easier knowing that Ashley had so much success.”

According to Takseraas and Witt, Diaz is already made history for women’s wrestling. But with another competition and one more year in varsity, as well as wrestling in college, the best may be yet to come for her career.

“Sometime down the road, maybe 20 years from now we’ll look back and see how girls’ wrestling is so much bigger than it is now,” Takseraas said. “Ashley was a trailblazer in that she was the first one to win states.”