The girls wrestling team has improved and grown a lot over the past few years, according to the coaches at Heritage High School. It has exploded statewide as many girls are getting involved in the sport of wrestling.
Girls used to have to wrestle boys to compete, but then a rule was changed to “not allow girls to compete against boys,” according to Coach Craft. That is when girls wrestling really started to grow, as there was a limited number of girls to wrestle and more needed to join to be able to compete. Over the last three or four years it has grown for a couple other reasons, like collegiate programs with women wrestling, and also “whenever they introduced women’s wrestling as an Olympic Sport, I think that’s slowly allowed the sport to get larger.” says Coach Wolfe. According to the coach, there are more than double the amount of girls they had last year.
Sophomore wrestler Hadley Akers began wrestling in 8th grade and said that “there was one girl every tournament and I was the only girl on the team in middle school.” That being said, the girls wrestling team has grown “a lot” over the last few years.
“The team is very fun and we’re growing a lot because we’re trying to get people in the wrestling room,” says sophomore wrestler Adison Steadman. This tactic has been very successful as the team is growing significantly since last year alone.
As the girls team has been steadily growing and increasing over the last several years, their team this year has been successful on a whole because of new numbers. Akers says that the team is “getting into Region so [they’re] serious.”
Coach Craft has stated that despite the challenges they have faced this year of losing many wrestlers to injuries, they have “persevered, worked hard, and are having more success now.”
They are hoping to finish the season strong and have a successful showing at Tradition Region and State competitions.
