Girls power the way
As COVID-19 is damaging the sport, one coach’s suggestions to stem the tide is gaining
It is still dark outside no matter what time of year it is when alarms go off throughout the Yatcilla household.
It is time to start the day. Showers and breakfast are put on hold.
Mark and Renee Ya tc ill a and their children, Luke and Paige, head to the recently renovated basement to get in a workout.
Father and son began the tradition a couple years ago. Mom and daughter joined in at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is new equipment to accommodate the different workouts, including a wrestling mat.
Luke is a senior at Parkland. He has wrestled since kindergarten. Paige, a junior, joined coach Jon Trenge’s wrestling program in February.
“I feel like we’ve gotten closer because of [wrestling],” Paige said of her relationship with Luke. “We’re always there pushing each other. It’s nice to share a sport with someone in your family.”
The Yatcilla bonding is one of the few positive wrestling stories to come out since the pandemic.
Yatcilla is one of seven girls on this season’s Parkland wrestling team, including sisters Georgi and Danica Butch. There were more than twice as many expected. A few who were part of the program last year plus several newcomers opted not to come out for COVID-19 reasons.
They are not alone. Northampton had a few junior high girls involved last season. They are not out in 2020-21. Freedom coach Dante Terenzio was working toward getting approval for a girls club program in the fall, but that fell through.
Other coaches mentioned girls who were interested but chose not to come out because of pandemic concerns.
It is not a gender-specific problem. Almost every coach has felt a pinch, none more than Scott Snyder who has only four wrestlers at Northern Lehigh. The Bulldogs
fought a numbers problem in recent years but were seeing improvement.
Palmerton has seven, about half of what coach Justin Petersen expected.
Parkland still has good numbers but lost 20 boys throughout its program because of health and safety concerns.
Pen Argyl has 15 varsity wrestlers but lost eight others.
There were two each at Northampton, Nazareth and Easton who opted to stay home.
And, Panther Valley dropped its wrestling program after the 2020 postseason for non-COVID reasons.
COVID-19 has created a problem for a sport that has battled perception and participation issues in the past, which led the PIAA to reduce weight classes from 14 to 13 starting this season.
“When you’ re not that far into the sport,” Northampton coach Seth Lisa said, “it’s easy to say, ‘Wait until next year.’ ”
Area high school wrestling programs could feel the hit for years to come because of time lost in the room and significantly reduced competition opportunities.
Many starters on teams are not going anywhere, but those who are either part-time varsity contributors, JV wrestlers or girls will be training this season with almost no hope of a reward.
Girls and JV tournaments are nonexistent. Varsity tournaments are gone. Varsity dual meets schedules are a shell of what it is in a non-pandemic season.
“You think about [those competitors] after your [main kids],” Nazareth coach Dave Crowell said. “But you have to start thinking below the surface level, about those kids not afforded opportunities.”
Junior varsity wrestling now is not what it was 10 years ago. Few schools have full lineups. Today’s culture of entitlement has seen kids not come out for sports because they were not going to start.
With the delayed 2020-21 schedule what it is now, it offers another excuse to not sign up.
“[Wrestling] is going to be in trouble if just 13 kids wrestle,” Lisa said. “Normally, that doesn’t matter because every team is grinding to try to win and everyone understands that. This is different.
“Wrestling is freakin’ hard. If you give them that time off to get into other things. ... We are fortunate [at Northampton] that we have a lot of kids who want to put in the hard work like this.
“This time off, we’ll feel this for a while.”
Lisa has been thinking about an alternative approach should this season remain as it is now — the Colonial League is scheduled to start Jan. 11, the EPC on Jan. 15— with a reduced number of regular-season competitions andthe hope of having team and individual postseasons.
The Konkrete Kids alum would like to see EPC teams consider one of two options should the league keep its modified scheduling model with teams competing in-county only. Team would face each county member twice in a home-and-homeseries in a twoor three-day span.
He said he would like to see Madison weights used, which essentially pairs up everyone based on weigh-ins, not a preset number of weight classes. Or, he said the teams could go all out for the win in the first dual meet and then use the second meeting a few days later as an opportunity to utilize the JVs.
“Let everybody wrestle. My JV kids are risking their health as much as anybody else,” Lisa said. “Why weigh in? It’s really about getting them together, line up and wrestle. It’s not that I don’t care about winning or losing, but I’m having a hard time getting into the mindset of trying for a win under these circumstances.
“These kids are putting themselves on the line to participate. My concern is to see that they can. If we go 0-2, at least kids get matches and hopefully their parents get to see them. We’re moreabout getting these kids to stay involved.”
The next progression in that line of thought is protecting the youth in the sport. The Valley Elementary Wrestling League is hoping for a season, but signups at area programs have not been good.
Northampton and Nazareth are among the area model programs in recent years for introducing young children to the sport. Their numbers and their subsequent retention of competitors once they get to the high school level has been solid. Their varsity success backs that up.
The PIAA board of directors Wednesday voted to conduct team and individual postseasons with adjusted brackets, an added super regional to get to only eight wrestlers per weight class for states. And, all tournaments will be one-day events.
It is not known if District 11 will have JV and junior high tournaments in February.
If not, it gives the non-starters a peek at the end game and wonder why they should take the risk.