ALTON - Antonia Phillips is a Senior at Alton High that gives her absolute best to every task she sets out to complete. As a junior, she was crowned the first female state champion (2022 was the initial season for girls wrestling in the Illinois High School Association) for Alton High School. Phillips is the Art Fahrner-Edward Jones Alton High Remarkable Redbird of the Month.

Antonia's goal for 2023 is to win it all again this year as a repeat champion. Antonia shared that she started playing football around the age of 5, and her dad suggested that she join wrestling because she always played football with the boys, and she was a pretty tough kid.

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Antonia's success happened while taking honors classes and maintaining a better than 4.0 GPA. Antonia added that her coursework gets more challenging each year as classes have gotten more intense. She said that "things have gotten tougher" but "I just want to make everyone proud." Her course load for senior year has included: AP-Statistics, Honors English 4, Art History, International Politics, Race and Ethics, and a dual credit course in Environmental Science.

A teacher of Antonia's mentioned that she is one of the most disciplined students that they have had the privilege of working with over the course of their 14-year career. The teacher added that Antonia has put in the work to train herself to experience success and it can be seen every day in the way that she interacts with the material she is presented with. Because of how aware she is of her own understanding, she makes being her teacher an easy job. Upon hearing that feedback, Antonia smiled and shared that she uses her independent ability and will go to a place where she can focus on the learning material provided to her.

Antonia has not yet decided on where she will go to college upon graduation from Alton High this spring, but she has a goal of wrestling on a women's team wherever she attends. She wants to major in sports management and would love the opportunity to become a coach for deaf or hard-of-hearing children and also be a sponsor or coach for a team for deaf or hard-of-hearing children.

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