Gardner does well; unknown woman shocks veteran

INDIANAPOLIS -- Hello, Stefanie Shaw. Goodbye, Melvin Douglas.

A 17-year-old high school student in her first major competition and a 40-year-old former world champion in his last were a study in contrasts, and results, at Saturday's U.S. Olympic wrestling trials.

The unranked Shaw, who has wrestled against boys since she was 7 but is facing a national-level women's field for the first time, upset third-ranked Sally Roberts 4-2 at 138 3/4 pounds to reach the challenge tournament finals Saturday night.

The mini-tournament winners in the seven men's freestyle and Greco- Roman and four women's weights face the national champions in best- of-three matches Sunday to determine the U.S. team, except for one Greco-Roman class in which the United States did not qualify.

Olympic gold medalist Rulon Gardner's first match couldn't have gone much better as he pinned Corey Farkas to move within one victory of a rematch with 2002 Greco-Roman world champion Dremiel Byers at super heavyweight. Gardner lost to Byers in the national championships last month.

Shaw, who wrestled on Watertown (Connecticutt) High School's boys junior varsity team this winter, entered an Olympic qualifier several weeks ago on a whim and unexpectedly placed second to make it to Indianapolis. So even she was stunned at beating Roberts, 23, the training partner of top-ranked Sara McMann and a 2003 world bronze medalist at 138 3/4 pounds.

"I'm so overwhelmed," said Shaw, such an unknown that USA Wrestling didn't have a pre-tournament biography prepared for her. "This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I really have no idea what to say."

Compact but powerful, she confounded Roberts not only with her aggressiveness but her anonymity.

The two had never met, something that rarely happens to wrestlers at so advanced a competition, and Roberts clearly did not expect Shaw to be as good as she was.

Asked if his daughter's upset was comparable to her moving up to the high school varsity and winning a state boys championship, father Roger Shaw said, "Oh, it's bigger than that."

Shaw met Alaina Berube later Saturday for the chance to meet McMann, who became top-seeded when national champion Kristie Marano didn't make weight Friday and moved up to 158 1/2 pounds. Marano also won her mini-tournament semifinal Saturday, beating Katie Downing 5- 1.

Advancing age wasn't as kind to Douglas as it was to another 40- year-old from Phoenix, perfect-game pitcher Randy Johnson of the Diamondbacks.

Douglas, whose daughter Christina plays softball at Ohio State, was trying to overcame a three-year layoff and make his third Olympic team, only to lose 3-0 in overtime to Tim Hartung at 211 1/2 pounds. He was later brought back to the mat for a standing ovation before forfeiting his losers' bracket match.

"This was my last one," said Douglas, a 1993 world champion, eight- time national champion and 1996 and 2000 Olympian. "I should have opened up more. I just didn't have the 'go.' "

Gardner had no such problem. He lost to Farkas a year ago in the U.S. nationals, only to repeatedly push him around the mat Saturday even as Farkas repeatedly went for Gardner's dislocated right wrist. Gardner was injured playing pickup basketball a week before the national championships and wrestled there with three pins in his wrist.

"If they beat me here, they'll earn it," Gardner said. "I'm not going to leave anything out there on the mat."

Also advancing was the other big name, Cael Sanderson, the four- time NCAA champion at Iowa State still looking for his first breakthrough victory internationally. He beat Clint Wattenberg 7-2 and is one victory away from a rematch with former Iowa star Lee Fullhart, who upset him to win the national championships.

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