Selle’s seamless transition to wrestling
Owatonna’s McKayla Selle works to take down an opponent during a meet last year. Selle has only been wrestling for three years, but already managed to qualify for state last season in just her second year in the sport. Staff photo by Johnnie Phillips
It didn’t take McKayla Selle long to make an impact on the wrestling mat as she qualifed for state in 2025, during her second season in the sport. Now she’s honored to be a senior captain having a hand in supporting the efforts of other girls in the Owatonna High School wrestling room.
“They all grow so fast. They learn something new every single practice and every tournament they are placing higher and higher. It is astronomical to me. It makes me so proud to see how much they grow every single practice and me being able to be their captain and guide them through that means the world to me,” said Selle.
With the middle school and high school girls combined, there are 16 girls on the roster.
OHS hosted a very successful girls classic in mid-December with 175 competitors. Owatonna Head Coach Derek Johnson said the tournament might shift to a Saturday to accommodate the growth.
He says Owatonna’s girls program is “extremely strong. The key for us so far is it’s been a part of the boys program. We’ve been able to have them develop at their own pace. A lot of the girls do prefer to train with the boys… If you don’t want to wrestle a boy, we’ll accommodate that. But if you do want that difficulty of training, you can do that too.”
Selle has always had an interest in contact sports. “For my whole life, since I was a little kid, I have done MMA and Muay Thai. After doing my freshman year with no high school sports, I was like, ‘I’ve got to do a high school sport. I do all these outside combat sports and I want to do something in high school.’ After training for only two weeks, my coach said, ‘You can go ahead and have your first match.’ I thought, ‘That’s crazy.’ Because when you train sports like Muay Thai, I had to train for like a 1.5 years before I could go and do an actual fight,” said Selle.
“Practice every day was different for me, but the mindset didn’t change for me at all. It was the consistency and the drive for the sport,” she said.
Selle is ranked fifth in her weight class by The Guillotine. She captured first place at the recent Belle of the Border Tournament in St. James. Sophomore teammate Aliah Fischer (ranked third) also won her bracket, reaching 50 career pins in the process.
The Huskies have two more home regular season meets. Thursday, Jan. 15 they welcome Rochester Mayo and Winona to Federated Gym. On Thursday, Jan. 29, Albert Lea comes to town.