At 11 years old, freshman Peytton Mack appeared to be dominating her wrestling match against a girl two weight classes above her until she heard a snap.
Mack was immediately rushed to the emergency room to learn she had a collarbone fracture. She couldn’t wrestle for the next two months.
“I had to wear a sling but I still went to practice,” Mack said. “That really set me back.”
Mack has been wrestling since she was 9 years old after attending her aunt’s MMA and Ju Jitsu studio while she lived in Nevada. When moving to Maryland, she continued to do Ju Jitsu as a sport.
When she moved to Texas in 2019, she and her dad met Professional wrestler Derrick Waldroup and started going to Rise Houston, a popular wrestling club in Humble.
For the first two years of wrestling, Mack won barely any of her matches, leading to the collarbone fracture.
“I never won and it was a tough time [for me],” Mack said. “So I knew I really had to work harder.”
After recovering from her collarbone injury, Mack was fearful to get back on the mat. She didn’t want to suffer the same injury again and became very nervous.
“I wasn’t in my right mindset,” Mack said. “I would get anxious and nervous about everything but I learned to push myself and keep going and going even though I was scared, which helped me a lot.”
Sophomore Aaliyah Castillo first met Mack a couple of years ago at RISE. While Mack was a little nervous to start high school, Castillo helped her relax and adjust to the team. Mack instantly made friends.
“She’s very kind to everyone,” Castillo said. “She loves helping people and showing them new techniques.”
Mack is 18-10 at Kingwood Park, while moving between the weight classes of 100, 105 and 110 to make sure she has an opponent at meets.
Junior Addisyn Millar, who is the girls’ wrestling team captain, has even picked up skills from practicing with Mack.
“When I went to RISE with her, she was like a captain,” Millar said. “She’s not new to this, she really works hard and it shows.”
During the wrestling season, Mack has also competed for RISE and currently has a winning club record this season. At RISE, the competition level is deemed higher than the 5A competition she wrestles at Kingwood Park.
In practice, the girls go against each other and compete to help each other. They build each other up, hang out together outside of school and tackle obstacles together.
Castillo said she looks up to the willpower Mack has to finish goals and become the best wrestler she can be.
“She’s very determined to get stuff done,” Castillo said. “If she wants to do something or she wants to get something figured out, she will do it.”
Before wrestling, Mack does not talk to anybody. She chooses to keep her headphones in and focus on the task at hand.
“I pace back and forth and listen to David Goggins,” Mack said. “I like when people yell at me, especially my dad, he yells at me and tells me I need to work harder and he’s never going to say it’s okay that I lost, he tells me I need to do better.”
Mack also competes on the JV cheer competition team as a flyer. Mack has two different personalities when it comes to wrestling and cheer – on one side she’s more fun and on the other side she is more aggressive.
“She has a very quiet demeanor, but when she gets to know you, she’s really bubbly,” JV cheer coach Sydney Caldwell said. “I think it’s funny that she has a whole other persona of wrestling, because she’s like the total opposite of what you would think a typical wrestler would be like.”
Caldwell is happy to have Mack as part of the cheer team, and Caldwell sees how her skills in wrestling have transferred well to her role in cheer.
“She got put into a flyer position, so she has a lot of responsibility because the judges really look at the flyers, how strong they are, their design work, which I think wrestling helps that,” Caldwell said.
As for wrestling, she showcases her skill set at every meet.
Wrestling coach Jeff Knight has watched and worked with Mack since the beginning of the school year and knows about her history at RISE. He understands she has already done great things and hopes to help her improve.
“I feel she has a great opportunity to compete for a regional spot,” Knight said. “I know that is a goal of hers too, and I am excited about having a girl that loves to compete and especially being in a weight class (100 lbs) that is hard to fill.”
Knight watched her start the high school season 9-0 and has seen how great she’s been on the mat. He said she has been physically and mentally tough and has kept a great attitude.
“She has accepted the challenge and wants to compete at the highest level,” Mack said. “It’s not easy being a freshman but she is fully committed. It’s tough early on facing our tough schedule but it prepares them for district.”
Mack said she plans to work hard everyday to make it as far as she can this year. Whatever her end result is, Mack hopes to build on it the next three years.
“I really want to go to state and I want to place at state,” Mack said. “If I went to state as a first freshman, that would change everything for wrestling.”
The key for everything Mack wants to accomplish is hard work.
“Everyone wants to win,” Mack said. ”You say you want to win but you don’t want to put the effort in, that’s what I used to do. I didn’t win and realized losing sucks, so I started putting work in everyday and it pays off.”