In a dark arena with music blasting, fans cheering, and spotlights shining toward the mat, Highland High School junior Aleks Bastaic powered her way to an incredible 2nd-place finish at the 2024 Fargo Junior Women’s Freestyle National Wrestling Championship, her second in two years.
“When you’re on that mat and you look outside, you don’t see anything,” Aleks Bastaic said. “It’s pitch black.”
While the Fargo tournament had thousands of girls competing as a whole, Bastaic competed in a 128-person bracket and made it all the way to the very end.
Coach Mark Maldonado, an HHS math teacher and the head wrestling coach, lauds Bastaic’s accomplishments at Fargo: “That’s the toughest tournament. We only had one other boy who placed top eight in our whole school history, and she made the finals twice.”
This is not the only tournament that Bastaic has enjoyed success in throughout the year. In March, she won the 2024 USA Folkstyle National Championship in Iowa. Additionally, she achieved the coveted triple-crown this year, winning the Indiana State Wrestling Association (ISWA) Folkstyle, Greco, and Freestyle tournaments. These three wins helped her qualify for the recent Fargo tournament.
Bastaic’s wrestling success did not happen overnight. In fact, her wrestling career began around 10 years ago.
“I started soccer as my first sport. … I was in 6U and they said I was too aggressive for 6U and they wanted me to bump up to 8U,” Bastaic explained. “We stopped soccer, and then I got a pamphlet at Johnston Elementary that said ‘Highland Wrestling Club.’” Coincidentally, Bastaic’s mother, Lauren Bastaic, is currently the school librarian at Johnston Elementary School.
Bastaic has been a part of Highland Wrestling Club ever since joining, and she continues to wrestle for the club when she is not in the middle of the high school season. During the season, however, Bastaic enjoys assuming leadership roles in the club.
“I usually go to their … club tournaments during the weekend,” Bastaic stated. “I always coach a few kids if I can.”
When it’s her turn to compete, however, Bastaic focuses on one thing: “You have to push past all the stuff in your head that you’re thinking about because you just need to wrestle. When you get on that mat,” Bastaic says, “you can’t think about anything, you just gotta go.”
We look forward to supporting Aleks when she plays for the newly-sanctioned girls wrestling team here at Highland High School this coming school year and beyond.
The photo is provided by Lauren Bastaic, Aleks’ mother and the school librarian at Johnston Elementary School.
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