South Dade’s Sawyer Bartelt, North Miami’s Mya Bethel are Dade’s Wrestlers of the Year

Neither Sawyer Bartelt nor Mya Bethel know what it’s like to end a high school wrestling season without a state championship.

A sophomore at South Dade, Bartelt won his second straight state title in 2022 and he has still yet to lose a high school match. A freshman at North Miami, Bethel became South Florida’s first ever girls’ wrestling state champion by winning a gold medal in her first season.

Both hope it’s still just the start of something really special.

“I actually like having a target on my back,” Bartelt said, “because pressure is a privilege.”

In two years, Bartelt hasn’t buckled to it. He won all 39 of his matches as a freshman and all 35 as a sophomore, and hasn’t even subject to a single takedown. He’s also now 2 of 2 in winning the Miami Herald’s Miami Dade County Boys’ Wrestler of the Year award after winning the Class 3A championship in the 220-pound weight class.

Even though he’s still an underclassman, Bartelt brings a veteran mindset to the mat. He has been wrestling since he was 4 and went through his growing pains before he was in middle school -- he lost every single match his first year wrestling, he said -- to become a well-oiled machine by the time he got to high school.

“His goal isn’t just to win,” Buccaneers coach Victor Balmeceda said. “He wants to obliterate everyone he faces. ... The standard’s high.”

Bethel, on the other hand, had never wrestled before last year. This was the first season of girls’ wrestling as a Florida High School Athletic Association-sanctioned sport and Bethel, who was focusing on volleyball when she started high school, decided to try it out as a way to stay in shape during the winter. She won every match she had against girls -- and even posted a winning record against boys -- to win the 155-pound state championship and become the Herald’s inaugural Miami-Dade County Girls’ Wrestler of the Year.

“It got fun for me, so I stuck with it,” she said, “and, bam, I went to state.”

She clinched her championship by earning an escape point with 15 seconds left in the gold-medal match, then rode out the final 15 seconds to win 2-1.

“Those 15 seconds,” she said, “felt like 15 minutes.”

For both, the goal of four titles in four years remains in play, but both have larger goals in mind.

Bartelt has long wanted to wrestle in college. After one season, Bethel feels the same way.

“Most definitely,” she said. “I see myself going to college for it.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 8:30 AM.