State High is latest county school to add girls wrestling

STATE COLLEGE — During a school board meeting last week, State College became the third Centre County school and the 102nd in the state to add girls wrestling.

State College joins Bald Eagle Area and Philipsburg-Osceola in adding the sport. BEA was the 12th school to add girls wrestling, in June 2021, while P-O was the 96^th, on Jan. 26.

“Yeah, we’re happy about it,” State College Coach Ryan Cummins said between sessions of the northwest regional tournament on Saturday. “We want to see if we can help grow the sport.”

There were 10 girls who came out for State College’s “Give Girls Wrestling a Shot” night in November. Only one girl, sophomore Anna Lackey, remained with the boys wrestling team the entire season.

“She’s done a couple of girls tournaments this year,” Cummins said. “She’s had a nice season. Hopefully she can help pull some girls out of the hallways and convince them to wrestle as well.

“We’re hoping with the addition of the girls-only program that we’ll draw some more girls. I think they will. We had some girls who were interested. They might have been turned off a little bit practicing with the guys. So, I think a girls-only team will definitely help.”

The PIAA announced in 2020 that 100 schools with a girls wrestling program would be needed in order for it to sanction the sport. Last Wednesday in its board meeting, the PIAA passed on a first-reading basis supporting taking over authority of high school girls wrestling.

Under PIAA rules, the board will need to pass last week’s motion two more times, and then get board approval from two-thirds of its present board to make it official. When interviewed after P-O added the sport, Mounties Coach Justin Fye said girls wrestling wouldn’t be an official PIAA sport until the 2024-25 season.

 “I think if we can get every team in the county to have one, there’s great competition there,” Cummins said. “It will just make everybody around us better.”

The PIAA will have to iron out if the girls will still be able to wrestle for both girls and boys teams.

The sport of girls wrestling has been growing significantly in recent years. Sanction PA, which is the nonprofit organization spearheading the push for girls wrestling in the state, has been the leader in the movement.

With the addition of PIAA-sanctioned dual meets, regular season tournaments and postseason tournaments for girls only, Cummins hopes wrestling will appeal to girls at State College.

“We’ve got a lot of female athletes in our school, and I’m sure some would love the opportunity to try something different,” he said. “We’ve gone to a bunch of girls tournaments this year, and it’s very surprising about the diverse amount of girls that you can get to try wrestling.

“There were rugby players. There were soccer players. And there were even cheerleaders who were wrestling. I was very surprised, but it’s kind of neat that they have that opportunity now. We should be able to get a full team together.”