The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Girls HS sanctioning could aid area
After years of slowly gaining steam throughout the state, the Ohio Girls Wrestling High School Task Force has officially launched a campaign to make girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport in Ohio.
In a news release June 3, the campaign stated it’s “working to provide educational information and resources to help grow opportunities for girls wrestling and help to promote the addition of schoolgirls’ wrestling programs.”
Twenty-three states across the country have girls wrestling as a sanctioned high school sport.
If girls wrestling is made a sanctioned sport in Ohio, the ramification for area teams could be massive. Just ask Columbia coach Dan Juliani.
Last year — Juliani’s first season as Columbia’s coach — the Raiders had three middle school girls’ wrestlers in Kirby Herrera, Evian Meyers and Sarah Napier. This fall, Juliani said he expects the number of female wrestlers to double.
“One of the reasons I was able to get so many girls was because I teach seventh grade, so I was able to tell the girls to come out,” Juliani said. “Two of the three girls have wrestled before, one of them has been doing it since she was in youth. They all loved it and are getting offseason workouts right now.”
If girls wrestling were to become a sanctioned sport in Ohio, it would remove one of the biggest roadblocks Juliani says girls have with starting wrestling: having to wrestle against boys.
“Talking to girls, they love the idea of wrestling — they just don’t want to wrestle boys,” Juliani said. “They just don’t see it as something they want to do. Even my daughter who wrestles for the youth program, she didn’t get to wrestle any girls this year.”
This past February, the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association held the inaugural Ohio girls state wrestling tournament at Hilliard Davidson, where more than 200 girls competed across 14 weight classes, with Elyria freshman Riley Banyas finishing as the state runnerup at 101 pounds.
Banyas finished the regular season 17-6 and wrestled against boys at 106 pounds and girls at 101 pounds.
“I have no doubt that sanctioning girls wrestling will help grow wrestling,” Elyria coach Erik Burnett said. “There’s no doubt about that. If the sport grows, it means someone like Riley could end up with more partners. She does great with the boys and has some good male practice partners, but a lot of girls are going to be feeling more encouraged about wrestling is they have female partners.”
In addition to Banyas, the Pioneers boast arguably the best girls wrestling alumni in the area in Jessie Lee, who went 20-14 last season for Tiffin’s women’s wrestling team.
Banyas and Lee wrestled and practiced with the boys on Elyria’s wrestling team, something that could change if girls wrestling is sanctioned and the number of female wrestlers increase.
“Logistically you’re going to have more girls on the team, so much so they’ll probably be their own team,” Burnett said. “You’re probably going to get a couple coaches and figure out what you’re going to do practice-wise. Do you have the boys and girls practice together a couple days a week or have them practice separately? All the changes are good changes, but we’ll just have to be organized and have more planning.”
While the novel coronavirus pandemic canceled this winter’s middle school girl’s tournament, Juliani thinks the success of last season’s girls tournament could serve as the prefect recruiting tool for female wrestlers.
“If any girls wrestle at the high school level, I’d give them the option to compete against boys or just train for girls’ tournaments,” Juliani said. “Olentangy Orange had a girls tournament last year, and obviously the girls state tournament they had was a big success, so it would be up to her if she wanted to compete with the boys. Luckily, we have full weight classes so it’s not like I would have to plug her in to a weight class. It’d really be up to the girl herself if she wanted to be on the team or just train for the girls’ tournament.”
The growth of high school female wrestlers was evident in the new rules adopted by the National Federation
of State High School Athletic Associations in April, as the biggest rule changes put forward were in regard to weigh-ins and hair length guidelines. Per the new rules, female wrestlers are now permitted to wear a form-fitting compression shirt along with their singlet, while weighins are streamlined to accommodate male and female wrestlers.
“Anything that could potentially bring more kids into the sport is good,” Burnett said at the time. “I didn’t think it was anything crazy. I feel the idea behind the singlets is to expedite
weigh-ins. I think having everyone weigh in together speeds things up in that regard. I think overall it was positive.”
Even if girls wrestling doesn’t immediately become a sanctioned sport in Ohio, there’s no denying the statewide rise of the sport.
“I have three girls consistently showing up to workouts, they’ve bought in and deserve to have their own sanctioned sport,” Juliani said. “For a school like us that’s very small, the only other options for girls in the winter are basketball and cheerleading. Wrestling gives them another option.”