The cheering, clapping, and shouting from audience members and teammates echoes through the gym. The scorekeepers began to choose participants for the match. Coaches give pep talks to the teams and one player steps up to the mat, determined to win. The opponents stand face to face with each other and shake hands as the referee blows the whistle, indicating the start of the match.
Wrestling is usually a primarily male dominated sport, until the popularity of female wrestling rose. Female wrestling has defied the gender norms of the sport and has shaped the future for female wrestlers.
“When I went to the tournament, I saw coaches yelling at them just to do it and it’s really hard to hear honestly and see the aggressiveness,” freshman wrestler Kayla Chen said. “It’s really nerve racking and you feel like, oh, I might end up in a position where someone else is going to be really aggressive on me.”
Chen believes that boys and girls wrestling should follow the same rules due to the fact that the different genders are equally aggressive. Many other athletes agree with this affirmation too, such as Daniella Moreno, who believes that wrestling should become more equal.
“Girls wrestling is way easier, but I feel like it should just be more equal,” senior Captain Daniella Moreno said. “Why does it have to be easier, you know?”
Many students believe that girls wrestling is easier, and less challenging than boys wrestling, while others disagree. Some athletes claim that women could overpower men in this sport.
“Girls are allowed to wrestle guys, so I think that when a guy is thinking ‘Oh that’s a girl, what an easy match’. “They think, ‘I’m gonna get a win,'” Moreno said. “But I’ve seen multiple times that girls dominate men in this sport.”
Participation in high school wrestling has quintupled since 2013, with more than 50,000 girls wrestling for their high school teams. Girls wrestling has risen in popularity, and may defy the norms of it being a male dominated sport.
“It’s awesome to see that they’re getting the opportunity to not only wrestle, but to compete with someone of their own gender, their own size, speed, and strength,” Coach Pedranghelu said. “It’s an astonishing opportunity for them.”
The number of female high school wrestlers has grown to approximately more than 30,000 girls since 2022. In 2021, there were only around 31,000 female wrestlers and in 2024, there are about 64,000. These astonishing numbers illustrate the growth of girls wrestling in high schools.
“It’s amazing to see girls have the opportunity to wrestle and break the norm of wrestling being such a male dominated sport,” Coach Pedranghelu said. “[It will] give girls and women the opportunity to showcase their strength, their courage and their dedication to the sport.”
