Kiski Area grad Bella DeVito gets off to solid start in college wrestling career at Lock Haven

When he got Isabella DeVito into the wrestling room at Lock Haven, second-year coach Matt Lackey immediately was struck by her demeanor. For someone who competes in such a high-intensity sport, she was, in Lackey’s words, “very mild mannered.”

But once she got on the mat, that demeanor changed. Under that placid exterior was the heart of, again, to use Lackey’s words, “kind of a quiet assassin.”

“I think the first thing that sticks out to me is her toughness,” he said. “Because without that, foundationally, you can know all the moves in wrestling, but if you’re not tough and can’t exert your will on the opponent, then it doesn’t matter what you know or what you can do.”

DeVito, a Kiski Area grad, has plenty of skill, too, and she used it to go 4-4 in her first eight collegiate matches for the Bald Eagles. Three of those victories, including her first as a collegian, came via fall.

She has wrestled at 123 pounds, where the Bald Eagles have a returning All-American in Lily Sherer, and at 130. DeVito, in fact, credited Sherer for helping her to adjust to college.

In her first tournament at Princeton, DeVito lost both of her matches while competing at 123. In Lock Haven’s second tournament of the season, at Adrian, she moved up to 130 and went 4-2 to tie for fifth place.

Her first pin came in just 23 seconds.

“I feel like the first tournament was rough for me,” said DeVito, who also participates in Army ROTC at Lock Haven. “I didn’t really do that well. But when I wrestled at Adrian, I wrestled at 130 there, and I felt like it was a better weight class for me.”

DeVito said she likely will continue to shuffle between the two weight classes throughout the season depending on the lineup.

There is still plenty to get used to in terms of college competition, but DeVito will have the opportunity to grow with the Lock Haven program.

Women’s and girls wrestling are relatively new, and the Bald Eagles are in just their third season of competition. The program was started during the covid-19 pandemic, which stunted its growth along with that of several wrestlers who came in during that time.

DeVito and her classmates — there are 11 other freshmen — will have the benefit of learning from the athletes who came before them, an advantage the older ladies didn’t have. Sherer and fellow All-Americans Grace Stern and Kaelani Shufeldt can provide a template for success.

“The environment for (DeVito) to improve should be vastly different than maybe what the first, early wrestlers had to experience,” Lackey said.

“I think she, along with many others, has a ton of runway and a lot of development to have. The women’s movement has progressed very rapidly, but a lot of girls you see coming into the college level … you catch girls that have been wrestling for only one to three years. She has some good stuff, but I think there’s room for a ton of development.”

And there’s always that toughness on which to fall back. DeVito developed some of that while competing with boys for much of her formative years.

She wrestled with the Kiski Area boys early in her high school career before girls wrestling had grown enough to stand on its own.

That, she said, helped her prepare for facing tougher college competition.

“I feel like wrestling guys is so different,” she said. “Guys are just so much stronger, and they work at a faster pace. Sometimes guys are more scrappy, funky positions.”

At just 5-foot-2, DeVito said she feels like her low center of gravity makes her difficult to wrestle. She also, Lackey said, is very proficient in using her upper body and getting good throws, “which are really fun to watch her do.”

But on that “runway” of development are two areas Lackey would like to see her improve: becoming more of an offensive wrestler and upping the ante when it comes to preparation.

“She’s heard me say this quite a bit,” Lackey said. “There’s a certain intensity and a certain level of how you prepare at the college level that you don’t often see at the high school level. So I want to continue to see her increase her intensity of how she approaches drilling and how she approaches practice throughout the year.”

DeVito acknowledged the need to be more aggressive when it comes to taking shots during a match. She said she hopes to achieve a better balance of offensive and defensive wrestling as the season progresses.

“I need to be more confident in my shots and take more shots,” she said.

The season has a long way to go, so there is plenty of time for DeVito to build on her early lessons. As for the team, she is excited about what it can accomplish.

The Bald Eagles were ranked No. 8 in the preseason National Wrestling Coaches Association poll, and Stern and Shufeldt were among the individuals who were ranked. In 2022-23, Lock Haven began the season ranked No. 19 and climbed as high as No. 7.

With a mix of talented veterans and a large freshman class, DeVito sees good things. And the young roster also has removed some of the stress for the freshmen and allowed them to ease into college competition.

“It definitely helps a lot,” DeVito said. “We’re all in the same boat.”

DeVito doesn’t shy away from suggesting she would like to be a national champion by the time her college wrestling career is over. Although, typical of her personality, she is pretty reserved in the way she talks about it.

No surprise to Lackey. But he thinks her opponents could be in for a surprise.

“She kind of puts her head down, works hard, does what you ask her to, and I think those are good qualities to have,” he said.

“She always kind of surprises me, because of how quiet she is, with how tough she is when she gets out on that mat for a match.”