Mount Carmel community girl, 10, wrestles against the odds, becomes national champion
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mount Carmel High School's boy's wrestling team won its first state team championship since 1994 earlier this year.
Last month, a wrestler who trains at the South Side Powerhouse won a national title. But that winner might not be who you'd expect at the all-boys high school.
Jackie Kostek introduces us to the 10-year-old girl who has all the right moves.
"My older brother Jayden, he would come home and practice with me and show me a few moves he had learned."
10-year-old Mercedes Carrasco might have picked up the sport of wrestling from her older brother, but she has made the moves her own.
"I just keep my head focused. Not to worry about anything else but the person in front of me," she said.
Most of the time - the person in front of her is a boy. Mercedes is one of just a few girls in the Caravan Kids Wrestling Club -- a decade-old program out of Mt. Carmel that gets elementary-age kids on the mat.
"One thing I'll say about Mercedes is that she is fearless."
The program's founder and director Roberto Garay says Mercedes immediately took to the sport.
"She started wrestling in the spring of 2021 and once Covid restrictions were lessened a little bit, we were able to get some practices in. She immediately wanted to compete," he said.
And when she did compete, she did quite well.
"She definitely likes competing against the girls but she's not afraid of going up against the boys. She did really well, second in our regional and took third in the sectional," Garay said.
In the regional, Mercedes competed against all boys. Sectionals - a mix of girls and boys.
"Sometimes they look scary, like where I'm scared but then I ended up beating them so I'm like what is there to be scared of?"
When Mercedes got the invitation to compete at the USA Wrestling Women's Nationals, her coaches actually warned her against going because it was a different style of wrestling, but Mercedes was adamant that she did not want to miss her opportunity.
"I wanted to go because I feel like I was going to win."
But in her first go on the national stage, Mercedes had a new challenge - she was coachless.
"I wasn't able to make it. Her head coach Rob Forbes wasn't able to make the trip and one of our rivals from Oak Forest Warriors Wrestling Club stepped into her corner and coached her into a national title," Garay said.
In just her second year of competition, Mercedes is a national champion. But she says she's far from done. Her goal?
"To become an Olympic champion and to break the stereotype that wrestling is just for boys," she said.
Already, she's inspired at least one girl to join - her 8-year-old sister Alexi.
Mercedes also did an international tournament where she wrestled girls from Sweden and Finland, so she's on her way to taking those steps towards a future Olympic game.