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From wrestling to handball and back

Stephanie Sagapolutele-Floor

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Leone High School’s 2018 Valedictorian Stephanie Sagapolutele-Floor was recently hired at Seneca High School, Seneca Pennsylvania as the Varsity/ JV and middle school Girls Head Wrestling Coach for the Bobcats. Stephanie, who works as a Dental Assistant will also be assisting with the boy’s Varsity and Jr. Varsity teams and will no doubt introduce the sport of handball.  Handball has become a useful vehicle for conditioning wrestlers as demonstrated by USA Wrestling and many universities and colleges.

After graduating from Leone and competing with her twin sister Danielle at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Beach Handball at Buenos Aires, Argentina, the twins attended Gannon University with the help of academic, indigenous and wrestling scholarships.  It was at Gannon University that Handball was discovered by Stephanie and Danielle’s father Carl back in 2012 while attending one of their older brother Sean’s wrestling matches.

Despite the lack of high school wrestling opportunities in American Samoa, Stephanie was able to train at CaBoom Athletic Club in Tafuna under the guidance of Conditioning Coach Boom Mahuka, her father Carl and brother CJ until CJ left the island.   Although Stephanie lacked competition, through hard work and proper training in college she would compile a 20 and 12 winning record in her senior year.  Stephanie would also earn Most Improved Wrestler all four years while compiling All American Scholar Athlete four years in a row.

While attending college the twins would continue their handball career representing ASA in 2019 twice, 2022 and 2023. 

 In 2022 the American Samoa Handball Association was searching for women to represent our territory interested in competing at the longest running beach handball tournament in the USA, the SoCal Championships at Huntington Beach, California.  Scheduling conflicts prevented many former national players who reside in the USA from competing. ASHA was also unable to raise enough money to finance a full team traveling from Pago Pago to California and back so National Team Head Coach CJ Sagapolutele Floor contacted Stephanie seeking three wrestlers from Gannon University who are capable of playing defense.

Gannon University wrestlers were already accustomed to playing handball as part of their warm up routine and three wrestlers, Lana Perez, Kendal Mcgarity and Juliana Cubias joined the 2022 ASA National Women’s Beach Handball Team. Completing a powerful line up was 2017 Oceania U17 Gold Medalists and MVP Stephanie Sagapolutele-Floor, Danielle Sagapolutele-Floor, Jasmine Liu and Naomi A’asa, 2019 Oceania Silver Medalist and MVP Lynette Liu and 2019 Indoor National Handball Team mate June Ames.

The 2022 team was the last team to medal for ASHA finishing in second place behind the San Diego Sea Dragons.  Stephanie was awarded Most Valuable Goal Keeper and Lynette Lie was awarded MVP Honors demonstrating the elite level of ASHA’s women’s beach handball program.  Lana Perez was a very effective defender blocking many shots and creating difficult shots by her opponents and continues to be an ASA National Handball Player.

Once again, the team mates find themselves together. Stephanie and Lana, who coaches girl’s wrestling at Walsh Jesuit High School at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio will not be on the beach court competing for American Samoa, this time the teammates will be demonstrating wrestling techniques during an early season wrestling clinic for girls between 6th and 12th grades at Seneca HS.

Both young women had an excellent career wrestling at Gannon with Lana earning 2-time All American status to go along with her Hawaii High School State Championship.  Lana is also a U20 and U23 USA World Team All American while Stephanie was awarded Scholar Athlete all four years at Gannon and twice awarded D2 ADA Academic Achievement Awards on 20211-22 and 2022-23. 

In January of 2023 ASHA’s focus was on building that team and ASHA created a team by combining four of our available top women, Stephanie Sagapolutele-Floor, Jasmine Liu, Lynette Liu and Naomi Naomi A’asa with U16 National Team players Azarya Togafau, Anamalia Liu, Falesiiliga Maakafi and Maraeah Afoa for the 2023 SoCal Championships. The team overachieved against the tournaments toughest teams playing very tough but eventually their inexperience prevailed and placed 4th after losing to Team Canada.

The synchronicity in this story is the connection and relationship between the sport of handball in American Samoa and the sport of wrestling in the USA with a special link through the Sagapolutele-Floor Family.

 Wrestling has been a sport that the Sagapolutele-Floor family has been very successful at for decades training at and competing for Tri-State Wrestling Club, Port Jervis City School District and Team NY/Md/Va All Stars and eventuely here in American Samoa at CaBoom Athletic Club. 

Handball was first discovered by Carl Sagapolutele Floor while he was attending one of his older son Sean’s wrestling matches.

“I stayed the weekend and on Saturday Sean wanted to play handball and so I went to watch what I thought was the handball that I grew up playing in New York.  At first I was confused because they were on a large field not a cement court and there were about thirty students. I soon learned that they were playing the Olympic Sport of Team Handball.  I liked and understood the game immediately and I knew that I could coach it and that my daughters could play being multi athletes.” stated CJ Sagapolutrele-Floor.  He added “When CJ told me that he played handball at the USA Olympic Training Center during his training for the London Olympics I saw additional value in the game.”

Gannon University Wrestling now also plays handball as part of their conditioning.

After researching the structure and governance of International Handball, Floor organized a team of delegates and formed the American Samoa Handball Association gaining ASNOC and Oceania membership in 2014 and international recognition in 2015. 

Within two years the association and players had earned numerous accolades.                                                  

Floor said “It’s an awesome relationship between wrestling and handball and funny how we have come full circle.  Stephanie has already accomplished what I couldn’t; she gets paid while I volunteer. It’s ironic that the sport that we excelled at in the states and love the most would introduce us to a sport that we never heard of yet we would also love and dominate in Oceania.  I can only imagine how we could have dominated both in Oceania. God is good with abundant opportunities.”

ASHA is currently recruiting a few more U17 boys and girls who wish to pursue a successful sports career and reach the highest level of youth sports, The 2026 Dakar YOG, again.  Interested athletes must be coachable, team orientated and ready to travel with a USA Passport. 

Contact Coach CJ at 272-1735 for info.