By Jarrod Ulrey, @UlreySports

Full article HERE

March 6, 2023--The growth in participation and increase in popularity that girls wrestling has experienced in Ohio in recent years figures to only be the beginning of bigger things to come for the sport.

One of the final major prep events to be held in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the OHSAA-sanctioned state tournaments in boys wrestling, girls basketball and boys basketball was the inaugural girls wrestling state tournament sponsored by the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association (OHSWCA) held in late February of that year.

It was only a short time later that calls for the OHSAA to sanction girls wrestling began. The OHSWCA added a state girls dual tournament during the 2020-21 season and the OHSAA announced Jan. 13, 2022, that girls wrestling would be sanctioned as an emerging sport beginning this winter.

Last season, at the third girls-only state tournament at Hilliard Davidson, Harrison won with 111 points, Marysville was runner-up (96) and Olentangy Orange was third (83), and those three schools should find themselves among the top contenders to win the first OHSAA state team tournament title March 10-12.

It won’t be the first time girls have had success at the state’s highest level in Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center, however, considering Casstown Miami East’s Olivia Shore became the first girl at the OHSAA state boys tournament to win a championship-round match in 2019 in that venue. She went on to become the first girl to place at the state boys tournament in 2021 when she did so at 106, but the Division III boys tournament that season was held at Marion Harding.

This will mark the first time that the all-girls tournament will celebrate championships in each of its 14 weights on the same mats as the boys event, with its competition representing one division regardless of school enrollment.