A first for girls wrestling! Dual meet in Nassau and pin by Syosset's Grace Palumbo for the MacArthur squad
Grace Palumbo of Syosset, wrestling for MacArthur, pinned Allison Molina of Uniondale in the 120-pound class at the first Nassau girls wrestling dual meet on Friday in Levittown. Credit: Michael A. Rupolo Sr.
As Uniondale and MacArthur girls wrestling prepared to face each other at Levittown’s Jonas E. Salk Middle School, a note of excitement and pride hung in the air.
Both were deserved feelings for all parties. After all, history was in the making.
Friday night marked the first Nassau dual girls wrestling meet in the county’s history, fittingly between two of the county’s best as Uniondale beat MacArthur, 35-24.
“The opportunity that is available for these girls is just unbelievable at this moment,” Uniondale coach Tim Godoy said. “I’m just excited to be part of it and doing our part on Long Island.”
Uniondale earned 25 points through forfeits in the 94-, 100-, 107-, 114- and 152-pound weight classes, with the flu having sidelined wrestlers for MacArthur. That meant that the first dual meet pin in Nassau girls wrestling history came courtesy of Syosset’s Grace Palumbo for MacArthur, who pinned Uniondale’s Allison Molina in 40 seconds.
MacArthur’s lineup includes wrestlers from Syosset, Farmingdale, Mepham and Seaford, which gives athletes from those schools without programs the chance to compete on the varsity level.
“That’s the goal,” MacArthur coach Nick Rausenberger said. “It’s about giving those girls a home and an opportunity to wrestle on the team, especially when last season it wasn’t a thing . . . all of the real feelings that have always been the boys’ pleasure of having, now the girls get to have that.”
MacArthur’s Olivia Rausenberger pinned Uniondale’s Jazmin Flores in 1:06, followed by a competitive match between MacArthur’s Grace Payea and Uniondale’s Haley West. Patea did well to keep West’s head down and emerged victorious by technical superiority, 12-1, though West did well to avoid the pin.
The quickest pin came courtesy of Mepham’s Taylor Brock, winning in just 17.3 seconds for MacArthur as she wasted little time in getting Uniondale’s Ashley Bonilla to the mat.
Reigning county champions Keishara Tulloch of Uniondale and Seaford’s Isabella Steffa of MacArthur faced off at 165 pounds, with the former managing the pin in 2:55.
“She’s an amazing wrestler, I’m an amazing wrestler, we go out there and one of us had to win,” Tulloch said.
Nassau will host its inaugural dual meet championships at Uniondale High School next month, on Jan. 21.
“The more meets we have across the county, the more I think the sport is going to continue to grow,” Godoy said. “We had about 80 girls in Nassau last year, we have over 250 this year. It’s one of the best sports I’ve ever been a part of.”
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
