Girls wrestling moves closer to goal of being sanctioned by PIAA

By: Chris Harlan
Saturday, October 29, 2022 | 11:01 AM

Someday, the state’s best female wrestlers will be crowned PIAA champions at Giant Center in matches held alongside the boys, if advocates for the sport get their wish.

“We’d like it to be at Hershey with the boys, that’s the goal,” said North Allegheny coach Dan Heckert, part of a grassroots organization that’s pushing to make girls wrestling a sanctioned PIAA sport. “How that (championship event) looks is something we’re brainstorming right now.”

The fact that those discussions are even taking place shows just how far the movement has come.

Three years ago, there were no high school girls wrestling teams in Pennsylvania, Heckert noted. Now, there are more than 70, according to a running count kept by the advocacy group Sanction Pa.

Moon recently became No. 72 statewide and the 11th in the WPIAL.

“I think it’s fantastic for the sport,” said Moon athletic director Ron Ledbetter, a former wrestling coach. “When I coached at South Side, I had a girl wrestle for me from time to time. They were usually pretty athletic, but they kind of reached their ceiling pretty quickly because there were no other females to compete against.”

Thirty-six state associations already sanction girls wrestling, according to Sanction Pa.

PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi was asked by state legislators about the status of girls wrestling in Pennsylvania when he met Oct. 25 in Harrisburg with the Pa. Athletic Oversight Committee.

Lombardi agreed that the sport is on course to reach the 100-team threshold required for PIAA recognition under its emerging sport program.

“They went through the process and did a great job,” Lombardi said. “I know (PIAA chief operating officer) Mark (Byers) has talked to them almost weekly and we’re very happy with the way that’s proceeded. We don’t think it’s very long from now that we won’t have our state championship.”

But the question remains: How long?

If the sport reaches 100 teams next summer as advocates predict, they want sanctioned PIAA championships the following winter. But the PIAA organizes its seasons into two-year cycles, and this is the first year of a cycle, so Lombardi said the PIAA might prefer to wait until the 2024-25 season to make that move.

“There are some things we need to work out,” Lombardi said.

One key issue, Lombard said, was that schools now have wrestling coaches who are juggling both boys and girls teams. He questioned how that can work when two tournaments are taking place simultaneously.

“You know how tight our sectional, district, regional time is,” Lombardi told the athletic oversight committee. “To incorporate another tournament inside that with the numbers we have, how do you get ‘Coach Martin’ to also go to another place to coach the other team at the same time?”

Lombardi was answering a question raised by State Sen. Scott Martin (R-Lancaster), chairman of the committee. Lombardi said he saw familiar faces when he attended the girls state championships last March at Central Dauphin, a Sunday event not organized by the PIAA.

“It was right after our event and a lot of people I saw that Thursday, Friday and Saturday (at the boys championships) are there again coaching another team,” Lombardi said. “I don’t know if we want to put schools in a position that they have to compete on a Sunday, so we have some logistics that we would have to work through.”

Lombardi also said the PIAA hopes to see an increase in female coaches and officials.

When the time comes, Martin urged the PIAA to link the boys and girls tournaments.

“I think it would be smart if it was somehow all tied in and not separate,” Martin said. “I think it would mean more to the girls, quite frankly, that if everything was going on as part of a package.”

Lombardi agreed, and said the PIAA wants the girls to have the same championship experience as the boys, down to the parade of champions and live video streaming.

“We want inclusion,” Lombardi said. “We want this to be all part of wrestling. And we want our girls to flourish because they’re part of that program. We don’t want to run a program where you’re separate.”

Lombardi added: “I’ve heard from the naysayers: ‘Just run it this way or run it that way.’ No. We want them to be all part of that experience.”

Asking coaches to coach two teams at once is a challenge, said Heckert, the head coach for girls wrestling and a varsity assistant for boys at North Allegheny. Likewise, Moon boys coach Mike Muraco is also overseeing his school’s newly approved girls team.

“It’s something that has to be juggled,” Heckert said. “I know a lot of coaches that are doing both. Is it a long term solution having them do both? Maybe not. But at the same time, look at cross country, look at track. There are other sports that do it.”

Heckert noted that as the popularity of girls wrestling has increased, tournament hosts across the state have become more accommodating. He pointed to a Mid-Winter Mayhem event hosted by IUP that intersperses its boys and girls championship matches.

“The more teams we get, the more opportunities we’re going to have for the girls and the guys to wrestle at the same places,” Heckert said. “There are tournaments already figuring this out.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: North Allegheny