I live in northern NY and just saw on our tv that 2 local teenage girls went to national youth wrestling tournament and did well-both placed in top 5. Just curious-is girls wrestling gaining in popularity in PA and do many high schools have separate girls team or do the girls wrestle on the regular school team? If the girls wrestle separately, are they getting fan support? Do other Big 10 schools have women wrestlers and is there interest in more colleges adding this team (obviously have to have some teams to wrestle)? Just curious. I know NLW club supports female adult wrestlers who wrestle nationally and internationally. I do not know if PSU is looking to add a woman's sport but I would think if a varsity sport were to be added to PSU it would be women's wrestling-I just have no sense of interest level in it! Thank you.
Question- how popular is female youth wrestling in PA?
- Thread starter psykim
- Start date
Girls have been wrestling in PA for many years, though the support structure for them has been so-so. For many years, girls have been wrestling on the regular school team. I've encountered quite a few girls that were wrestling varsity for teams in PA. The PIAA, which governs HS sports in PA, indicated last year (I think that's when it was), that they would stage a girl's championship when 100 schools established separate girl's programs. As of last week, 54 schools had established girl's programs. There are a few schools that already have all-girl programs, and wrestle other all-girl teams. In addition, there has been a state championship in recent years that was held independently of the PIAA. Lastly, if you go outside of the high school and focus on youth wrestling, the number of girls wrestling has been growing for some time, and they hold qualifying events and states for girls. In short, the numbers are growing, and the sport is in transition at the high school level.
I have no clue. The handful of teams that were wrestling all-girls teams against each other were outside of my region, and I've never reffed their matches.
At this point, I believe that Iowa is the only B1G school that has announced the formation of a women's team.
The former AD indicated that women's wrestling was something that PSU was looking at. Beyond that, PSU has been pretty quiet about their interest level and their deliberations. With a new AD and a new President, it remains to be seen what type of interest they have in adding a women's wrestling team.
thanks for all that info Tom! See what happens at PSU. Curious-if Iowa forms a women's wrestling team-and no one else in Big 10 does-who do they compete against!? Are there lower level teams that have women college wrestling? I am not sure how many women are involved in NLW but there have been nationally/internationally ranked or championship level wrestlers. Time will tell what the new AD or big supporters deide to do!
Roar More-just curious as to how popular it is -do many girls try out-and if there are close by teams to compete with plus if they get a very good following in PA. Around here in Northern NY they still compete on the regular high school team and a few talented girls go to national tournaments. I only see the highlights but they sure look tough!
They are a month old. I believe there are a few other girl's teams in Allegheny County now. This article gives a list of girls wrestling programs as of January 2022. https://www.ydr.com/story/sports/hi...irls-wrestling-heres-growing-list/6555580001/
