Wrestler takes girls’ state championship

By Rich Fisher

As Shellitha Collins stood upon the peak of the podium and fans at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall applauded her effort, none were aware of just how much this year’s NJSIAA 235-pound girls’ state wrestling champion once despised challenging competition.

“I started wrestling in second grade because my brother (fourthplace state finisher Lavitsky Collins) wrestled,” the Ewing High junior recalled. “I was in my follower stages in life and wanted to be like my brother. I lasted until third grade, and I felt like I was horrible. I only wrestled boys, and I just got my butt whupped.

“It was like, ‘I don’t want to compete.’ I didn’t ever stop practicing. I know my stuff now. But back then I gave up because I kept getting beat and I didn’t like it at all. I don’t like being overpowered and I don’t like losing. So I didn’t like it with the boys.” ful and, on March 4 her journey hit its latest high point when she pinned Lakeland’s Caroline Biegel in 2:15 to become the first state wrestling champion in EHS history for either boys or girls. After a standstill first period that produced no points, Shellitha planted Biegel 15 seconds into the second.

“I won the coin flip and took bottom, and I got the reversal on her and swung her on her back,” said Collins, who finished fi fth in last year’s states. “After I won, I feel like I looked silly the way I was, like, running in place. But I was really happy. My dad jumped 10 feet into the air. My grandpa was crying in the stands. Lavitsky couldn’t be there, but he was proud of me.”

As was the entire EHS community; knowing it finally had a state champion on the mat.

how far would you go if they were sick?

“I’m honored to be the first,” Collins said a week after making history. “I know my name is going to be up there as the first one to have this accomplishment.”