Tony Santos was determined. He was determined to get a girls wrestling team established at Hamilton High School.
The 2006 Big Blue graduate and former state placer knew it would be good for the sport — and the school.
“My thing was that when I came over here at Hamilton, I said, ‘Look, I want to start a girls team,’” said Santos, who is in his first year as head coach of Hamilton’s wrestling program. “We knew it’s been tried in the past.”
But there was little to no success. The interest just wasn’t there.
So, Santos continued to advocate.
“I said, ‘It’s going to happen. I’m going to get a girls team,’” he continued. “I did some recruiting. I told the girls who were already interested that they were responsible for bringing one girl back here.”
And before Santos could roll out the mats, he had 12 girls in the room.
“Now we’re making some noise,” he said, noting that senior Payge Iglesia is the only undefeated wrestler at 12-0.
The story over at Hamilton isn’t unique, now. It’s happening all over the state — and Butler County.
Currently 79 Ohio high schools have a full team and 232 schools have at least one female wrestler, according to Tim Stried, the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s Director of Media Relations.
Fairfield, Hamilton, Lakota West and Badin have all fielded teams, while Madison, Monroe, Ross, Edgewood and Lakota East have at least one girl wrestler. Middletown and Talawanda have a girls wrestler either at the junior varsity or middle school levels.
“The increase in participation has been very rapid,” Stried said.
During the 2017-18 school year, there were a total of 205 female wrestlers in Ohio. That number grew to 825 last year and looks to be in the 1,100 range this year, Stried said.
Girls wrestling this season became an OHSAA sanctioned sport, along with boys volleyball.
“Bringing girls wrestling into the OHSAA has created a significant spark of awareness and opportunity for girls who are interested in this sport,” Stried said. “Since boys wrestling has been an OHSAA sanctioned sport for over 80 years, most schools already have the structure and coaches in place to have a team, so adding girls to their program has been recreating the wheel.
“There are so many good things that happen to young people from participating in interscholastic athletics, and we are seeing that with the young ladies who are wrestling for their school,” Stried added. “The support from the OHSAA and their school’s athletic department make a big difference and make them feel respected and confident.”
Stried said the biggest challenge was creating the tournament structure, both in terms of setting up the regional tournaments to determine who will qualify to the state tournament, and then adding the girls to the already established state wrestling tournament at the Schottenstein Center.
The girls state wrestling tournament is set for March 10-12.
“But another positive impact is that many schools were able to elevate an assistant coach to become the head coach of the girls team,” Stried said.
That has happened with numerous area high school wrestling programs — including Fairfield, which is headed by Blair Willcox.
However, Dwight Pringle oversees the Indians’ girls team.
“The beautiful thing about this is that there is a ton of trust in the process in order for them to do what they’re doing,” Pringle said. “It’s been an amazing thing to see.”
Pringle said the vibe has shifted from being a club type approach to a full-blown girls wrestling squad at Fairfield.
“These girls are doing great things, and you’ll be able to see that this weekend,” said Pringle, who went on to note that Mason is hosting the 2023 Women’s Big 10 (Greater Miami Conference) Wrestling Invitational on Saturday, Feb. 4.
Sophomore Bre’Aunna Carroll is 24-4 for the Indians, who placed first in the Reynoldsburg tournament that included 15 teams earlier this season.
“Individuals who think that girls don’t belong in this sport, I just think that looking at some of the wrestlers, they have shaped and reformed people’s opinions on these girls getting on the mats,” Pringle added. “The part that’s been successful is that we have our space. These girls are getting their time, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
‘We can do this’
Once all-girls wrestling tournaments began popping up around the area, that’s when Adam Meyer had to start answering some questions.
“The girls were like, ‘We can do this?’” said Meyer, who heads the Lakota West wrestling program. “It’s really starting to grow in our school — especially when we were going to do girls-only practices instead of having them come in with the boys team to practice.
“We had separate times for the boys and girls.”
The Firebirds officially fielded their first-ever all-girls team this season.
“It’s been a great experience so far, and we’ve wanted to do it the best way possible,” Meyer said. “We had a good turnout with signups in October and late September, and that gave us the go ahead to have a team.”
The newly established Lakota West girls squad has 11 wrestlers, and according to Meyer, junior Kate Fenton, freshman Jenna Wilson and freshman Kelsey King could make some noise in March.
The Firebirds have had a recent history of competitive girls wrestlers within the program in the past.
Graduates Kendra Hiett, Grace Hicks and Kate Telles are considered trailblazers for Lakota West.
“We’ve had good athletic girls in years past,” Meyer said. “The level of talent just keeps getting better.”
Meyer said the focus and drive has immensely grown, too.
“They’re putting in the work,” the coach said. “We’ve done film reviews and some days we don’t get on the mat because we’re working on other aspects of the sport with them. We did that for a couple of weeks with lifting at the beginning of the season, and after two or three weeks, they were like, ‘Can we just get on the mat?’
“It’s just like coaching any squad that I’ve ever coached before.”
Meyer said with the attention and growth girls wrestling has received at Lakota West, he’s gotten Kaimi Cummings on board to coach the girls.
“The last handful of years, it started coming on,” Meyer said. “Then tournaments started to get bigger, and it’s definitely exploding. The girls are helping to reinvigorate a new population and hopefully balance it more.”
With girls wrestling now sanctioned by the OHSAA, Meyer believes there will be more opportunities for high school girls wrestlers after graduation.
“It’s only going to grow at the next level so that there are greater chances at college,” he said.
“We want this to be impactful for them. And a good experience — because with a lot of our wrestlers, this is where it will end. They’re eating it up quick and enjoying being able to compete in other arenas.”
Meyer envisioned that with the popularity of girls wrestling increasing, he wouldn’t be surprised if girls and boys wrestling seasons are separated in the future.
“With gym space and running practices, I’m not opposed to having two different seasons for boys and girls,” Meyer said. “Right now, it’s doable. But if it’s growing — once it gets closer to 25 girls — it may be something to consider.
“These girls are understanding that they are pioneers to the sport,” Meyer added. “We took pictures, and we’re sitting here saying, ‘Wow, this is our first girls wrestling team,’ when they look back in their yearbook.”
‘An emerging sport’
Craig Martin was dealt with one of those good problems to have prior to the start of the wrestling season.
The third-year Badin mentor promoted the formation of a girls team, but he wasn’t quite getting the hits he had hoped for right off the bat.
“We began the year thinking we weren’t going to have an individual team of girls,” Martin said. “We sent out multiple notices saying, ‘Hey, who wants to be a part of this?’
“We wanted to know who would be interested in growing the sport and participating in it.”
Martin had distributed flyers throughout the school looking for girls wrestlers on three separate occasions — at the beginning of summer, at the end of summer and right before the season.
While senior Rachel Nusky — who placed second at state last year — and junior Shea Scarborough were already part of the co-ed team leading up to this season, Martin was locked in on establishing an actual girls squad.
Still, nothing.
“To no avail, we really didn’t have a whole lot of interest at that point for whatever reason,” Martin said. “Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was because it was new, whatever it may be.”
Then just as the season was getting ready to start, there was a knock at the door.
“Next thing you know, we had 7 or 8 girls walk into the wrestling room ready to go,” Martin said. “We were a little bit behind as far as getting them a schedule because we really didn’t expect that.”
Martin went scrambling to slap together some meets for the newly, quickly established Badin girls wrestling team.
“Some coaches would like to do all of that scheduling stuff earlier in the summer, but we were super happy to have them participating,” Martin said. “That was the goal, and that’s what ended up happening.
“The girls have gone with the flow. We practice together. We don’t have separate practices (from the boys) so they’re in there like it’s a co-ed team,” Martin added. “They get in there and grind like everybody else. They’re really trying to improve and learn the sport and actively take a role in it.”
Martin also said the ongoing interest and consistent growth on the girls’ side has been a positive — not just for Badin, but for the sport in general.
“We’ve had girls in wrestling on the team for quite some time that have participated and made an impact on the program. It’s sort of been here already,” Martin said. “Like everyone else, the OHSAA and many other schools are putting some support behind it. We’re all trying to grow it as much as we can. It’s all pretty exciting.”
What’s most exciting — and historic — was that the first-ever girls meet at Badin took place last Monday.
“Trying to find dual meets and tournaments have been tough,” Martin said. “This first one we just had was kind of like a ‘Hey, we need to get matches together’ thing. Let’s get these girls some more experience.”
Badin held the super-tri with eight schools — and a total of 40 girls — that competed in mixed matches so each participant would wrestle at least twice.
“The level of wrestling was impressive for this being an emerging sport,” Martin said.
Martin said there wouldn’t be any form of middle ground with it being the first season fielding a team of girls with this many — eight — on the roster.
He’s wanting, and expecting, it to prosper.
“A lot of schools like us are thinking that if you’re going to do this, you’re going to want to do it right,” Martin said. “You’re going to want to put some money behind it and have a team and support it just like any other sport.
“To see these girls go out and use what they’ve learned from this and own the craft, they’re doing a lot of great things,” Martin added. “The wrestling is quality.”
And Martin anticipates the quality of talent to continually get more and more competitive.
“The people who are involved with this sport want to see it succeed on the girls side of things,” Martin said. “To me, that’s so cool to see.”
