Angela Bereuter might be the best basketball player who wrestles.
Or maybe she’s the best wrestler who also plays basketball.
The Wentzville Holt product went to Fargo, North Dakota, and took home 7th place at the U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals tournament.
Not a bad showing for the junior-to-be who didn’t know if she really wanted to go to Fargo.
“I was scared because I was like, I paid all of this money and if I go 0-2, I’m done,” she said.
So, what did she do in her first match?
She lost by a pin against Autumn Woods from Ohio.
From there on out, Bereuter had her back against the proverbial wall.
She rattled off five wins in a row that allowed her to earn a stop sign.
“I didn’t think I could be All-American, but everybody knew I could, and everybody had seen my bracket said I would wipe through the bracket,” Bereuter said. “But then I lost my first match. It’s not how I wanted it to go. I never lost the first match in the tournament, but I had to work my way back through the backside.”
Bereuter beat Raine Yang from Wisconsin by an 11-0 tech fall in her first consolation match. She followed with a pin in 56 seconds against LaRon Ables from Indiana.
A pin over Molly Marty from Kansas came at the 4:47 mark, with Bereuter leading 5-2 at the time of the fall.
Marty had beaten Bereuter by a pin at the National Duals.
Bereuter kept her winning streak alive with a pin over Shelby Wells from Texas. Wells led 1-0 early before Bereuter took a 4-0 lead that led to a pin.
“I was scared the whole time,” Bereuter said. “I’m not going to lie.”
She said she didn’t realize the pressure until she got to the consolation quarterfinals. She faced Brenda Banks from Pennsylvania.
“I had wrestled her at National Duals and she teched me; I didn’t know what I was walking into,” Bereuter said.
She said the nerves before the match got to her and she was crying — her response to pressure.
Bereuter learned lessons from that first match. She recalled that Banks likes to shoot, so she kept that in the back of her mind during the 12-2 loss.
She knew Banks would shoot right away from the first whistle. She guessed right.
Bereuter got two early points and never trailed. She led 6-1 at the time of her pin at 2:21.
Michigan’s Halle Spears beat Bereuter by a pin, which sent Bereuter to the 7th-place match. Katherine Luna from California went up 1-0 early against Bereuter. However, Bereuter got the pin at 1:23.
The only loss this summer that Bereuter has not been able to avenge is against Indiana’s Aubrey Bartkowiak, who was the Fargo national champion.
“After my matches I’m upset, then I realized now I know how to defend,” she said. “I learned from them. I don’t go back and rewatch my losses because I know and I remember how I lost. Versus, if you win, you don’t really remember how you won or anything. I always go back and rewatch my wins. There’s always stuff to work on, even if you win matches.”
This was the first summer in which Bereuter has put in a lot of time wrestling. She didn’t start wrestling until his freshman season, but has been juggling time between basketball and wrestling.
Bereuter said she’s only splitting time between basketball and wrestling
“I always thought basketball was my sport, but I’ve gotten a lot better at wrestling and I realized that wrestling might be my sport,” she said. “If you asked me a couple months ago, I would say basketball still would’ve been my favorite. But now, I’m leaning more toward wrestling. Like, on a basketball team, you play as a team and your loss at a basketball game is the whole team’s loss. Like, it’s not one person’s fault. With wrestling, it’s your loss. Which is like the bad part about it, but your win is your win.”
She said she already has two offers to wrestle in college and more coaches are reaching out after her All-American showing. During the high school season, she went 39-9 and took home sixth place in Class 1.
“I would do all basketball during the offseason, but this year, I just did all wrestling,” she said. “It was more fun than basketball.”