BUTLER TWP — Winning isn't what it is all about for Ana Malovich.

Competing is.

Malovich, a freshman Butler varsity wrestler and the lone female on the team, is 11-2 this season. Wrestling at 106 or 113 pounds, seven of her wins are by forfeit.

“It's very frustrating,” Malovich said. “I want to wrestle.”

Opponents aren't forfeiting to Malovich because of her gender. Two of her four on-mat wins this season have come by pin-fall.

“Ana is very competitive. She can hold her own out there,” Butler coach Scott Stoner said. “It's just that a lot of teams don't have wrestlers to fill those lighter weight classes.”

Malovich has been wrestling since the age of 5. She got into the sport through watching her older brother, Donovan, wrestle for the Golden Tornado a few years back.

Without a girls team in the Butler system, she's grown up wrestling with the boys. She was 21-8 in seventh grade, 14-11 last year.

As she gets older, Malovich admits taking on male opponents on the mat is getting more challenging.

“The strength difference is getting bigger,” she said. “I have to rely on my fundamental skills a lot more. There are moves I can do against another girl that I have to avoid when I'm wrestling a guy.

“I'm still confident. I still believe I can win.”

So does her partner in the Butler wrestling room, Kelley Schaukowitsch. Those two battle in wrestle-offs during practice to see who wrestles where in the matches. The winner wrestles at 106 pounds, the loser at 113.

“She's a good wrestler,” Kelley said. “She's got technical skills and knows how to execute her moves. She knows what she's doing on the mat.

“Ana is a serious wrestler. Everybody on the team respects that.”

Butler Junior High coach Donnie Geibel said Malovich is “as an intense a wrestler as I've ever coached. She competes in the sport year-round and that experience shows.”

During the spring and summer, Malovich competes in female wrestling tournaments and often leaves the state to do so. She's participated in tournaments in Texas, Wisconsin and Virginia, among other states.

She placed at the Body Bar Nationals — a girls tournament in Texas — in 2019 and was a prime contender to do so again in 2020 before that event fell victim to COVID-19.

“My goal is to wrestle Division I in college,” Malovich declared.

How she gets there remains a mystery.

A movement is under way to form a girls wrestling team at Butler. North Allegheny formed such a team recently.

The Golden Tornado could field a girls team as soon as next year.

“With all the COVID stuff going on, our efforts are on hold right now,” Stoner said. “But, yeah, that's still possible.

“If we had a girls team and wrestled (as part of a dual match doubleheader) with the boys team, could Ana wrestle for the girls, then come back out and wrestle for the boys team? Details like that still have to be worked out.”

Malovich claims Butler would have little trouble putting together a roster for a girls wrestling team.

“I know six or seven girls personally who would definitely do it,” she said. “They'd be wrestling for the school right now ... they just don't want to wrestle against the boys.

“I'll do whatever I have to do. If I have to wrestle on the boys team all four years ... I'll going to keep wrestling. This team is like my second family.”

Geibel described the potential formation of a girls team as a “double-edged sword” where Ana is concerned.

“Any wrestler improves through good competition,” Geibel pointed out. “As these girls wrestling teams are formed (in Pennsylvania), a lot of those kids are going to be first-year wrestlers with very raw skills. Ana could dominate, but that may not help her development as a wrestler.”

Malovich pinned New Castle's Kortel Marshal in the second period last week after building a sizable lead.

“I think it's great,” New Castle coach Bruce Allen said of her wrestling. “I wish there were more of them. That girl is good.

“She may go a long way in this sport.”