Dakota Cooley sits crouched in the corner normally reserved for coaches during the 103-pound match at a recent Chelsea High School wrestling meet.

“Hit it! Hit it!” he yells, an All-State senior captain encouraging his freshman teammate to end the match in spectacular fashion.

The diminutive Bulldog didn’t disappoint, hitting a textbook gator roll - a move where both wrestlers are spun 360 degrees while parallel to the mat - and finishes with a pin.

While the entire Chelsea bench was in an uproar over the win, their elation paled in comparison to that of Cooley, whose smile stretched from ear-to-ear.

That wasn’t just any teammate hitting the crowd-pleasing move. That was his baby sister, Taylor.

The scene is the norm at Chelsea’s matches. Dakota imparting his wisdom from the corner, while little sis tries to absorb as much knowledge as possible while simultaneously flipping gender norms, and opponents, upside down.

“If I don’t know a move he always helps me out. He’ll coach me a lot,” says Taylor, who loves the fact that her first season at the varsity level is being spent under the tutelage of her big brother. She’s not alone in the feeling.

“It’s nice to have her on the team for the last year that I’m here,” Dakota says. “It kind of gives me some extra motivation.

“I get pumped up when she wins. It gets me more ready to go.”

That’s bad news for Dakota’s opponents. With a perfect 25-0 record so far this season at 145 pounds and a pair of Division 2 All-State medals already to his name, Dakota is anybody but someone who needs “extra motivation.”

Regardless, that’s exactly what he gets the majority of the time from Taylor, who was 13-4 at week’s end.

“She’s very competitive,” says Chelsea coach Kerry Kargel who in his 30 years of coaching had never had a girl come out for the team.

Though Kargel thinks having Dakota as a brother couldn’t have hurt, he credits Taylor’s work habits and success for the way her teammates have accepted her as just another wrestler.

“I think it eases the transition that she’s scoring points for us on the team,” Kargel says. “When she goes out there, I’m counting on her to score points, and in the practice room she does everything everybody else does. You can’t even tell she’s in there.”

One person who does know she’s in there is Dakota and Taylor’s father, Jerry Cooley.

“Taylor said she really wanted to wrestle this year so she could wrestle on the same team as her brother and it’s kind of just made it nice,” Jerry says. “We’d all be at the tournament anyway, so it’s nice to have her out there at the tournament with him.”

While mom Karen Cooley says her nerves don’t discriminate based on gender, Jerry’s outlook is that of a classic father.

“She’s my little girl," he says. "So I definitely get more nervous watching her.”

Pete Cunningham covers sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached by e-mail at petercunningham@annarbor.com, or by phone at 734-623-2561. Follow him on Twitter @petcunningham.