Girls wrestling debuts as emerging sport
Mercedes Natalia De La Rosa Avila is a senior wrestler at Tucson Flowing Wells who has a goal of winning a state championship this year.
In girls wrestling.
With 2018 being the debut as an Arizona Interscholastic Association emerging sport, De La Rosa has a chance to accomplish her goal.
“This is my last year, I don’t want to be living on regret, not thinking if I am good enough or if there is going to be a girls team or not, so I am just going to take the shot myself,” De La Rosa said.
She added that there was a good chance she was going to wrestle anyway, regardless if there was a girls team or not.
Before this year, De La Rosa wrestled boys all season but that made her a long shot to win a state title.
“It is a level playing field from the standpoint of practice. It is a level playing field as far as competition and then it is a level playing field when you get to the state tournament as well,” AIA sports administrator Dean Visser said. “So, the opportunity affords itself for the girls to stand on the podium and get recognized as well as the boys.”
What we will see
The girls state tournament will be aligned with the boys state tournament in Prescott Valley.
There are 105 schools in the state who have girls wrestling as part of their sports curriculum, but it remains to be seen how many of them will have enough girls to field a full team.
Girls will have the option to compete in any of the ten weight classes: 101, 110, 118, 125, 130, 135, 145, 160, 185 and 225.
How the sport is growing
“(I want) to actually become a girl wrestler, not just have the title of a girl wrestler but to actually be one,” De La Rosa said. “I can’t wait to pin people and have the full experience.”
It is tough to expect a sport to grow overnight. Wrestling is viewed as a male-only sport with very little female participation.
Phoenix Moon Valley boys varsity wrestling coach Brian Smith believes competition is the quickest way for the sport to grow.
“We need to provide as many opportunities of girls from one school wrestling girls from another school,” Smith said. “Right now there (are) only eight girls competitions scheduled throughout the state. It is evolving just about once every week or so I get a notification of another school that is going to have a girls versus girls competition. We just need more competition.”
There are eight tournaments on the schedule that will feature girls-only tournaments this season:
Dec. 1 - Quest for the Crown at Gilbert Higley
Dec. 7 - Peabody Energy Wrestling Classic at Monument Valley
Dec. 14 - Girls Veteran Memorial Wrestling Invitational at Window Rock Fighting Scouts Event Center
Jan. 12 - Anthony Robles Women’s Wrestling Invitational at Mesa
Jan. 19 - Flowing Wells Girls Wrestling Open at Tucson Flowing Wells
Dec. 3 and Dec. 10 - Tolleson High School
The state tournament is set for Feb. 7-9 at the Prescott Valley Event Center.
Smith believes girls wrestling will take off as a sport, perhaps faster than people may think.
“I will make a prediction, as of next year there will be a big number of schools that literally will have enough girls that they could field a partial, maybe even a full team and at that point within two years we should be able to have school versus school girls competition,” Smith said.
“It all kind of depends on what kind of coaching is out there and how well the standard wrestling coaches that are out there can relate to coaching more of the girls,” Visser said. “I think it starts with coaching and of course the enthusiasm from the students and from the athletes.”
The AIA has indicated girls wrestling “will become a full sport when the coaches and administrators in charge of it are ready to present it to the Executive Board to be categorized as a sanctioned sport. There is no timeline on that but rather when the sport is ready and has shown significant growth,” according to an AIA spokesman.