Kaila Del Toro already had her high school wrestling career turned upside down by the pandemic.
“I kind of got state taken away from me,” the Taft senior said. “It really sucked. I was always working up to that.”
This was going to be her last shot. It came with the added attraction of girls wrestling making its debut as an IHSA-sanctioned sport after several years of a state series sponsored by the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association.
Then came Jan. 10. Wrestling in practice, she suffered what she initially thought was a shoulder injury.
“I didn’t think it was broken at first,” Del Toro said. “I said, ‘No way it’s broken.’”
But she did break her collarbone, barely a month before the IHSA sectional.
That might have been the end of it for some athletes, but not Del Toro. She was determined to come back and not miss this state series.
“Honestly, it was all faith,” she said. “I just really believed I was going to be better. The doctor told me, ‘You’ve been healing really fast.’”
Fast enough to return to action for the Evanston Sectional and win the 125-pound title with four straight pins. Del Toro heads to Bloomington’s Grossinger Motors Arena this weekend for the inaugural girls state finals, which will be held in conjunction with the boys team state finals.
A state title is “100 percent the goal,” said Del Toro, who is no stranger to high-level competition between Taft and the Beat the Streets Chicago youth program.
She was an age-group All-American in 2019 and, competing against boys, won the Public League frosh-soph title at 113 in 2020.
Del Toro was in Taft’s boys varsity lineup during the abbreviated pandemic season last spring and qualified for the IWCOA boys sectional.
This season, with a logjam of talent at Taft’s lower weights, she wrestled mostly exhibition matches against boys. The girls sectional marked not only her comeback but her varsity season debut.
Taft coach Brad Engel has big dreams for Del Toro, up to and including a spot at the top of the podium on Saturday.
“Her work last year speaks for itself,” Engel said. “That was the goal of all our discussions: ‘You can be the first IHSA state [wrestling] champion from Taft.’”
Del Toro came to the sport relatively late as a freshman. She did have a background in mixed martial arts and jiu jitsu.
“I’ve tried my fair share of sports [like] basketball and soccer,” she said. “I did those for years.”
But neither left her fulfilled.
“They didn’t have the aggressiveness I needed,” she said. “I like the contact sports.”
It’s an interest that could help pay her way to college.
“Coaches call all the time,” Engel said. “They’ll really be calling now.”
Especially if Del Toro is one of the IHSA’s first girls state champs.
