College of the Redwoods – Maizie Fugate, Adenne Schaad and Shinobi Renteria

By Ray Hamill — The Corsairs will make a little bit of history this weekend.

On Saturday morning, College of the Redwoods will host a first-ever women’s wrestling tournament in their first season competing on the college mats.

The inaugural Redwoods Open will also feature teams from Sac City, Lassen and San Joaquin Delta.

“We want to get them some mat time and show everybody what women’s wrestling is all about,” head coach Brandon Benvenuti said. “It’s the first-ever women’s (wrestling) tournament in the history of College of the Redwoods.”

Benvenuti is expecting somewhere between 15 and 20 wrestlers to compete, including two of the three CR grapplers.

Former H-DNL standouts Adenne Schaad (Del Norte), Maizie Fugate (Eureka) and Shinobi Renteria (Hoopa) make up this year’s roster, with Fugate recently making a little bit of school history of her own by becoming the first CR woman to ever win a wrestling match.

The three Corsairs have been practicing together for the past month and a half and the former Eureka Logger won a match at the Sac City showcase event.

“We got some matches in and the ladies all did pretty good,” the head coach said.

Schaad will not wrestle this weekend and will red-shirt this season, but Fugate and Renteria will be in action as they look to build some momentum.

“I just want to say how proud I am of these ladies,” Benvenuti said. “They’re blazing a new path.

“Women’s (college) wrestling is an emerging sport and they’re blazing a path for the whole California community college system, and I’m really proud of them. They’ve been stepping up and they’ve been keeping a positive attitude.

“They’re the frontrunners.”

After this weekend, the Corsairs will continue their season at Fresno next week and will also compete in a tournament at Sac City later in March before the state championships on April 20.

“We’re very excited and eager to get back on the mats to compete again,” Benvenuti said. “We’ve been working hard.”

The Redwoods Open begins at 9 a.m. and is expected to run until noon or 1 p.m.