Sanyah Queen caps off phenomenal wrestling at St. Thomas Aquinas with state championship

In the final match of her high school wrestling career, Sanyah Queen felt no pressure. It was all about having fun, having faith, and most of all, having belief in herself.

Queen was a phenom in New Jersey for the last four years with a 104-13 record, yet up until March 8, a state championship eluded her. She felt as though in the rare instances where she lost, too much doubt crept inside her head.

When the St. Thomas Aquinas senior had a chance to seize the biggest prize at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, Queen harnessed all her lessons through adversity and rolled to a 12-6 victory in the 138-pound title bout.

“The big thing that changed from my last three years compared to this year was my mentality,” Queen said. “I’ve always prayed to the Lord that I do win, but if I don’t believe in myself, and if I don’t believe in the prayers that I pray, there’s no point in doing it. So one of the main things that I did was believe in myself, and then believe in what my coaches are telling me.”

A three-time Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament champion and a three-time regional champion, Queen had always come tantalizingly close to standing atop the podium at the state championships. She took fifth place at 126 pounds as a freshman, second place at 145 pounds as a sophomore, and fourth place at 145 pounds last year.

In securing a dominant decision over Newton’s Eva Berry, Queen simply planned to be the best version of herself. With everything on the line, she wanted to be the aggressor in going for takedowns and not fixating on defending them.

She prefers not to watch film of her opponent. She focuses on her own abilities because she likes to be an unpredictable wrestler, and competing in so many high school matches and national events has made her versatile on the mat.

“My game plan for any match that I go into, I don’t necessarily look at them and then expect something, because I feel like at any given moment, if someone wants to switch up their style, they could,” Queen said. “Especially for coaches, (if they) tell them what I’m going to do, they can switch up and do something different. So adjusting mid-match, being able to adapt to a different wrestler, I think that definitely helped me in my last match.”

Queen, an Elizabeth native, grew up idolizing her brother, Jasiah, who is two years older and recently competed at the NCAA Championships for Drexel University.

Queen remembers asking her father around the age of eight if she could wrestle, but he prohibited her from competing against boys as the sport didn’t exist for girls at the time. She tried out gymnastics for a year, then did cheerleading for a few years and even soccer for a year.

When she enrolled at Elizabeth High, she competed in both wrestling and volleyball but ultimately chose strictly wrestling after a volleyball injury required surgery on her knee. Seeking a bigger challenge on the mat entering her sophomore year, she transferred to St. Thomas Aquinas to develop under coaches Landon Kearns and Gabriel Roman.

Wrestling has always come naturally to Queen, but as someone who never wrestled until a tournament two months before high school, she knew she had techniques to learn.

“I wasn’t really a shooter, so I had to learn how to take shots correctly and finish my shots and not just hold on to a leg,” Queen said. “I definitely think that I did have to put in some work, but the basic things, like snapping down or sprawling, I kind of got right off the bat, because I was watching it, so I knew the concept of what I had to do. It was just doing it that really I needed to work on.”

Queen became so dedicated to wrestling that this past year that she has woken up 4 a.m. to practice with her dad at their wrestling room at home. Nutritionally, she monitors her calories to maintain the correct weight and stays hydrated to give herself plenty of energy.

Queen says Roman is like a “second father” with his support at her matches even though he no longer coaches for St. Thomas Aquinas. She also accredits one of the school’s current coaches, Bob Murphy, for teaching her how to aggressively circle in and shoot out her opponents.

Her hard work culminated this winter with a nearly perfect 32-2 record on the mat. She became only the second wrestler in St. Thomas Aquinas history – boys or girls – to win a state championship after Apryl Coffman did it in 2023.

After an unforgettable journey with the Trojans, Queen is set to wrestle for Western New England University next year.

“Wrestling for STA was really a great experience for me,” Queen said. “I was able to grow my connection with God. I pray every day now, I read the Bible every day now. I think that’s brought me a long way. I believe in my prayers now and believe in what I was sent here to do, so I think my connection with God and wrestling definitely helped me grow and helped me become the wrestler that I am today. I think making the move to STA was one of the best decisions that I could have ever done, especially for my career.”