Winlock’s Rachel Archer to Wrestle in Olympic Trials

Many athletes dream of competing in the Olympics, the world’s biggest stage, hoping to stand on the podium with their country’s anthem playing in the background.

For Winlock’s Rachel Archer, the dream of competing in the Olympics is within reach. Archer will compete at the U.S. Olympic Team Wrestling Trials this Saturday and Sunday in Iowa City.

Archer finished second in the Women’s Wrestling University Nationals to earn a spot in the Olympic trials.

She started wrestling in first grade, waiting for her dad to finish youth practices before she got a chance to wrestle.

“When I was younger, I wanted to do everything my brother did,” Archer said. “I started to try to practice with the boys and tried to wrestle. My dad didn’t like the idea of it; he said ‘Girls don’t wrestle’, which made me want to wrestle even more.”

Eventually, Archer convinced her dad to let her start wrestling. She competed, and won, against the boys with her dad as her youth coach.

Archer wrestled at Winlock High School, earning three straight state championships, winning the 106-pound title as a junior and senior and taking the 103-pound championship as a sophomore. Archer’s high school coach, Pat Jones, helped her development as a wrestler throughout her high school career.

“He was really technical,” Archer said. “He trained us hard, tough as nails, in really good shape.”

She wrestled year round during high school. She didn’t consider wrestling in college until her senior year, and finally decided to take a scholarship to join the wrestling team at Oklahoma City University in March of her senior year.

“I was almost done with my senior year before I decided I wanted to wrestle in college,” Archer, 21 and a junior at OKCU, said. “I had the opportunity and I had scholarships offered to me and I knew if I didn’t take those opportunities, they would never come again.”

With all her success, she captured the eye of OKCU wrestling coach Archie Randall. OKCU is the No. 2-ranked wrestling program in the nation, according to USA Wrestling, and has been a national wrestling powerhouse for the last decade, earning a handful of team and individual national championships.

“She’s a hard worker, she’s pretty tenacious, she wrestles real hard, which is the style we wrestle,” Randall said. “She’s attacking all the time, so that’s why we recruited her.”

She had a 43-21 record during her freshman and sophomore seasons. The transition from high school to college wrestling was not easy.

“In college, all the girls in college, they are their hometown star from wherever they are from, so everyone you wrestle is good,” Archer said. “Everyone that you wrestle has credentials, they’ve won tournaments, they’ve won state titles, they have experience. Each year that you develop in college is huge. It’s a whole new level of wrestling.”

This season, Archer has won three tournaments. At University Nationals, Archer was trying to get into the top two to qualify for the Olympic trials.

“I knew I had to wrestle through the bracket and win all my matches to get into the finals or I wasn’t going to qualify,” Archer said.

She made it to the finals, losing 12-8 to Wayland Baptist University’s Tarkyia Mensah. Randall said that it was the best tournament of the year for Archer.

“She should have won it,” Randall said. “She lost in the finals and had a chance to win; she put the girl on her back twice. That was the best tournament she wrestled all year and that comes with experience and with confidence, and she develops confidence every time she wrestles. That’s the most important thing, she’s really confident when she wrestles.”

Even though she wanted the championship, she knew she had qualified for the Olympic Trials — which had been something of a goal over the past few yars.

“I’ve qualified for world team trials the past two years. This year is an Olympic year, so instead of world team trials, it’s Olympic team trials,” Archer said. “I really wanted to qualify for it. It’s been in the back of my head all season, and I knew it was going to be a great experience if I was able to qualify; who knows if I would get to wrestle in it again.

“The next one is not for another four years. This was my prime opportunity to qualify to get to wrestle in a tournament like this,” she added.

While preparing for the biggest wrestling tournament of her career, Archer has had a busy week leading up to the trials this weekend, trying to balance her nursing school work with her wrestling preparation.

It will not be an easy task for Archer to qualify for the Olympics, with 17 wrestlers in her weight class. The list of competitors at 116 pounds includes Helen Maroulis, the 2015 World Champion and the top ranked woman in qualifying, according to USA Wrestling.

“That’s a world champion, how can you feel like you’re not going to get better after you wrestle her?” Randall said. “All the experiences she’s had to lead up to where she’s at right now, have been important to her. She keeps raising the bar for herself every time that she competes which is the way it has to be if you want to be a champion.”

Archer has wrestled against Maroulis once before, in the 2014 ASICS U.S. Open, losing 10-0.

Others looking to qualify include 2015 World Team Member Whitney Conder and past U.S. World Team Members Jessica Medina and Deanna Betterman. The past experience against Maroulis was a learning experience for Archer, and she won’t be afraid on the mat, no matter who she ends up facing.

“Our coach likes to tell us that we are some of the best,” Archer said. “It doesn’t matter if we are wrestling the number one girl, we shouldn’t go out there scared, we should go out there with confidence. I’ve trained and I’m good, and I can be competitive with this girl.”

A U.S. female wrestler has never placed in the 55 kg weight class at the Olympics, with Saori Yoshida claiming gold all three years of the event and will look to earn a fourth gold in Rio. Canada’s Tonya Lynn Verbeek has claimed the silver medal twice and a bronze medal.

Archer won’t be the only OKCU wrestler at the Olympic Trials, as six other OKCU wrestlers, and five alumni, will be competing at the trails this weekend.

“I wouldn’t want to do this by myself, it makes it more fun when you have your other teammates going with you,” Archer said.

Her parents will be in attendance at the Trials, and Archer wants to compete her best and have a little fun.

“She’s not going to change her style of wrestling; she’s going to wrestle hard like she always does, she’s going to compete well,” Randall said. “She gets a good draw, she’s going to get a good shot. The most important thing is she’s getting an opportunity to wrestle in front of 16,000 people. That’s huge, it’s going to be the best experience she’s ever had in her wrestling career.”

“My goal for this weekend is to go out on the mat with confidence, not be scared to wrestle, be happy for the opportunity, wrestle my best and have fun,” Archer said.