Perseverance and patience lead to national title, Olympic trials

On Saturday, Southern Oregon University women's wrestler Sienna Ramirez clinched the program's first individual national title in the Raiders' first wrestling meet in over a year.

On, preparing as best they could given what activities were allowed so they'd be ready for a return to the mat.

All the perseverance and patience paid off-- especially for senior wrestler sienna ramierz who captured the first individual national title in team history.

As the number 8 seed, she knocked off the number one and number two seed en route to her national championship at the 155-pound division.

It's a win that means even more to her now.

Sienna ramirez: "it means a lot just because of all the roadblocks we had to overcome.

And it was just.

It was yeah.

A mental challenge more than anything, like just trying to, how, like, how badly do you want this national title?

How badly do you want it?

And so you had to, i had to be really like self motivated to just like keep coming back.

And like, i guess it's more fulfilling to know that, like it was worth it in the end."

Throughout the fall and winter months, the wrestling team did all they could to stay ready... even when contact practices were prohibited.

Ramirez said there was one point in their winter training where the team almost broke-- but they worked through it as a team-- eventually finishing fifth in the nation as a squad.

If there was an actual season this year... the n-a-i-a invitational could've gone much differently.

Joel gibson: " i don't think there's another team in the country that really endured what they did... they wrestled, you know, they wrestled one tournament this year took fifth in the nation.

Had we had a full season.

We'd definitely be coming home with the trophy."

And there's still more on the horizon for s-o-u women's wrestling.

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