Recent Fort Osage graduate Aroma Marrufo looked up to former teammate Haley Ward.
Ward came from a wrestling family and was a prodigy coming into the Indians girls wrestling program. She was a four-time Missouri state champion, was a two-time gold medalist at the Pan-American Wrestling Championships and a multi-time All-American in the U.S. Marine Corps Junior & 16U National Championships.
That success motivated Marrufo to train harder and put in more time on the mats late in her sophomore season with Fort Osage. She had wrestled since she was in middle school but wanted to strive and become an elite-level wrestler like Ward.
“She accomplished things that a lot of girls in wrestling don’t,” Marrufo said of Ward. “I started taking (wrestling) seriously at the end of my sophomore year. I just wanted to be the best in the room. It was in my competitive nature. I am very competitive person. I wanted to be one of the best the best in the room and I wanted to be one of the best in the state.”
From there, Marrufo flipped a switch and become one of the best girls wrestlers in the state. She was a two-time champion of the Kansas City Stampede Tournament; took second as a junior and was a state champion at the Missouri State High School Wrestling Championships earlier this year att 110 pounds and she capped her high school career off with earning All-American honors at the 2024 U.S. Marine Corps Junior & 16U National Championships in Fargo N.D., taking second place in the 105-pound weight class of the Junior Division.
“If you are going to be a good wrestler, you have to take everything about the process seriously,” Fort Osage head coach Brandon Wackerman said. “She committed to all those processes. She became a great wrestler as fast as anyone I have ever coached.”
Ward’s influence was a big part of Marrufo’s success. When they were teammates, Ward gave some valuable advice.
“There was a couple of times I would be nervous about big matches, and she would say to wrestle my heart out and act like no one is watching,” Marrufo said. “It’s just you and your opponent on the mat, just wrestle smart’”
That’s exactly what she did at Fargo Nationals. She won her first four matches by tech fall before taking down Addie Morse of Oklahoma in the semifinals, 4-1. In the finals, she fell to Heather Crull of Indiana, 11-0.
“Overall, I am pretty proud of my performance,” Marrufo said. “I think there are always things I can clean up. The finals were really rough, but she’s a really good wrestler. I am not mad about losing, but I am a little disappointed.
“In the semifinals, I got a takedown in the last 3 seconds of the match. She did a good job staying in a good position. I was trying to be smart, stay in good position and cut off any angles for her.”
Before the tournament, Marrufo decided to cut weight four days before the tournament. She was previously in the 110-pound weight class before she lost enough weight to drop down to 105. The move paid off.
“I think I am pretty lanky for 105,” Marrufo said. “Having the advantage of being taller and lankier than my opponents allowed the shots to be there.”
“The weight cut was a little rough. I was trying to exercise as much as possible and be smart with my diet. It was a tough process, but I knew it was going to be worth it.”
Now, Marrufo has two All-American honors under her bel, including a sixth-place finish in 2023. She also helped Team Missouri Blue take second place in the Air Force Special Warfare Junior National Duals in June in Tulsa, Ok. Marrufo went 6-1 during the dual tournament.
Even as a 2024 graduate, Marrufo said she wanted to compete at Fargo Nationals and the National Dual Tournament one last time before she moves on to wrestle for North Central College in Naperville, Ill.
“I definitely wanted to get some more work in before college,” she said. “I wanted to see where I was as far as competition still. I wrestled some decent girls there.
“I got to be on the same team as my best friend Angelina Vargas (of Park Hill) one last time. We are practice partners and we practice with each other’s club teams. It was pretty fun.”
