MONMOUTH — Tammy Cushman and Emily Levasseur both stepped on a mat for the first time in the fifth grade, albeit four years apart.

Both were virtually predestined to wrestle, though for different reasons. And both now rank among the best Maine and New England has to offer.

Next weekend, Cushman and Levasseur are headed to the 15th annual National Girls Wrestling Championships at Eastern Michigan University. Each earned the right after finishing second in their respective weight classes at the New England Open in Nashua, N.H.

Cushman, a 138-pound senior at Monmouth Academy, advanced through her bracket in her customary workmanlike fashion. Levasseur, a 103-pound eighth grader at Monmouth Middle School, overpowered most of her competition.

But New Englands was a bit of a revelation for both wrestlers. It was the first time Cushman had wrestled against another girl this year, and just the second time for Levasseur.

“It’s a lot different. I’m not used to wrestling girls,” Levasseur said. “New Englands was a good experience because it showed me that I wasn’t invincible against girls. Boys are more upper-body strength and girls are more lower-body, in the hips and legs. I can use muscle moves on girls.”

“Girls are a lot harder to turn over,” Cushman said. “When I’m wrestling guys, they’re easier to turn over. With girls, I have to work over to get points.”

Cushman rarely wrestled girls in her high school career, but there was never any doubt she would take up the sport. She comes from a family of wrestlers. Her coaches, Kyle Fox and Mike Danforth, are cousins, and another cousin, Fox’s sister, Jessica, competed twice at nationals.

Though she was the only girl on her team, Cushman quickly gained her teammates’ respect with her commitment to the sport.

“She comes to everything. You don’t have to look for Tammy. She’s always there. She’s our most dependable person. She was here every day during the summer program,” said Fox, who runs the middle school program and is an assistant coach for the high school team.

Cushman tore her ACL during her junior season, although she wrestled for several matches without knowing she had injured her knee. She underwent surgery in April and returned for her senior year but didn’t feel close to 100 percent until last month.

Cushman is exploring opportunities to wrestle in college, but if that doesn’t work out, she’s grateful for the opportunity to walk off the mat one last time knowing she was physically capable of giving it her best.

“I’m kind of nervous because I haven’t seen (the competition). But at New Englands, I hadn’t seen them, either,” Cushman said. “I’m hoping to at least place. The top nine get medals. I’ll be satisfied with ninth but I’d like to get top six or seven.”

Levasseur has her sights set on a top-three finish. But even if she doesn’t reach that goal this year, chances are she’ll have many more opportunities throughout her high school career.

She possesses uncommon upper body and core strength for a 5-foot-2 girl, something her classmates discovered one day in the fifth grade when the gym teacher pulled out the wrestling mats.

“I was pinning everyone. I even pinned one of the guys that was really, really tall and big,” said Levasseur, who won six of 12 matches this year with a sore wrist. “The coach (Danforth) and one of the high schoolers told me I should be a wrestler. I signed up in sixth grade and I liked it a lot.”

“You could tell from her athleticism, her strength, her balance, she had it right from the beginning,” Fox said. “It’s a rare thing to find a naturally talented wrestler like that. We were really happy when she decided to do wrestling.”

Both Cushman and Levasseur are aggressive when they step on the mat, which should serve them well at nationals, Fox said.

“They both always have the right approach,” he said. “There are two ways to approach wrestling. A lot of people worry about what their opponent is going to do to them. You definitely can’t do that going into these kinds of tournaments. They’re worried about what they’re going to do to their opponents, and that’s why they are as good as they are.”

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