Girls’ wrestling is booming. ‘If you can’t tell, it’s a really big deal.’
Woodford County wrestling’s Maquoia Bernabe couldn’t hold back her emotions after she pinned her finals foe in the second-ever Kentucky Girls State Championships last Saturday at Tates Creek High School.
As the referee raised her arm, the tears fell — not only because winning was so important, but also because this day was so important.
She hugged her opponent, her coaches, her teammates — all of whom seem to exist in some fantasy the senior could never have imagined when she first started wrestling against boys in seventh grade.
“If you would have told me my eighth-grade year or freshman year that we were going to have a girls’ state (tournament) by my junior year and over 100 girls would be in it, I would have laughed at you. It’s so amazing to see the growth. I don’t even know how to describe it in words,” Bernabe said. “It’s also very emotional because I missed the first ever (girls’ state tournament) due to having surgery on my shoulder, so this was my first and my last as a senior.”
Girls’ wrestling is not yet sanctioned by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association or many other states, even though girls have been competing in boys’ wrestling for years.
So, the Kentucky Wrestling Coaches Association decided last year to put on its own girls’ event to try to see if what was happening across the nation — a booming trend — could happen here.
It’s happening.
When Bernabe began her wrestling career in 2014, Kentucky had a total of 30 female high school wrestlers.
In 2019, the first Kentucky Girls State Championship had 105 wrestlers from 33 schools.
In 2020, there were 171 entrants from 41 schools, wrestling in front of a crowd that filled half of Tates Creek’s gym with fans and all of it with sound.
Event organizer and Tates Creek Coach Scotty Teater estimates there were 220 girls wrestling for 50 schools this year during the season.
To put all that in perspective, there were 1,902 male high school wrestlers last year in Kentucky, so there’s a lot of headway to make. This is only the beginning.
“It’s great to finally have a girls’ state, and I love to see the growth that us girls have built over the years and the ones before us,” said Bernabe, who will continue her wrestling career at the University of the Cumberlands, one of the top-ranked college programs that’s helping foster the sport. “It’s just awesome to bring it together.”
Why wrestle?
Henry Clay had never had a female wrestler before. Now it has two.
“I started off the year, and I was not expecting to wrestle at all,” said the Blue Devils’ Samantha Wiggington, who won the 182-pound class on Saturday. “I saw the sign-up sheet at freshman orientation, and I asked my Coach (Andy) Critchfield, ‘can we take girls?’ and he was like, ‘well, we’ve never had girls, but sure.’”
With girls-only meets still very few, Wiggington and female teammate Alex Uribe have to practice and compete mostly against boys. Uribe finished sixth in the 120-pound class Saturday.
“Our team is very, very supportive and really cool and make you want to keep going,” Wiggington said. Female wrestlers “are proving that the girls are just as tough as the boys, but not only that, the girls are here — not just to ‘look’ at boys or just do something ‘new’ or to be ‘masculine.’ — It’s to do something to prove ourselves: to prove who we are.”
Central Coach Makayla Pledger wrestled as the lone girl in her part of Indiana for years and would have loved to the have had the opportunity to compete against other girls in her day, which wasn’t that long ago for the 24-year-old second-year coach of this year’s team champion.
“If you can’t tell, it’s a really big deal,” Pledger said as her team celebrated with their first-place trophy. “I coach these girls because I love it, and I know it’s going to give them an opportunity to better themselves. ... I don’t try to get as many girls as possible. I want girls who are actually going to have their lives changed by wrestling.”
Amazing atmosphere
Among those awed by Saturday’s showing was Priscilla Brownfield, the first female wrestler to qualify for the KHSAA state wrestling tournament back in 2006.
“I didn’t think there would be this many girls, honestly,” said Brownfield, who wrestled for Campbell County and was honored before Saturday’s event. “My brother, he was ecstatic. He said, ‘This is great that you started something this big.’ My dad just called and said, ‘I can’t believe there’s that many girls. Send me a picture! I want to see.’”
Brownfield not only qualified for the state meet as a senior, she had a record of 3-2 there. She began wrestling after seeing her younger brother wrestle when he was a third-grader. But it wasn’t easy.
“I started in the seventh grade and I definitely was bullied a lot, called a lot of names no girls should ever be called, but this was my sport and I really enjoyed it, and I knew I was never giving up,” said Brownfield, who went on to wrestle in college at the University of the Cumberlands. “I stuck with it.”
Saturday’s event in Lexington also impressed the coach of one of Kentucky high school wrestling’s most decorated programs.
“It’s amazing how excited the girls are to compete,” said Union County’s Robert Ervin, coach of the 11-time team state champion. “The thing I really like about it, and I’m going to point it out to my guys at home — when they’ve got one of their teammates wrestling, every one of them are on the mat — and (to see) how excited they are cheering for their teammates — it’s fun to watch. These girls are serious about competing.”
Union County had one female wrestler at the event, senior Savanna Bacon, who won the 126-pound class.
“We’re trying to start a girls’ program, so more girls will come, but it’s a kind of struggle,” Bacon said.
Bacon mostly wrestles against boys, and Saturday’s meet was her first high school girls’ event. She wrestles girls on the national circuit, but she prides herself on her winning record this high school season against the guys.
“I don’t know, it feels kind of good when I wrestle the guys and make them cry when I pin them, but it feels good to wrestle girls sometimes,” Bacon said. “It means so much to have girls wrestling break out everywhere. We’re going to prove to guys that girls are just as strong as they are.”
College growth
Women’s college wrestling has taken off in recent years and created a need for more girls in the sport. Scholarships are there for the taking.
“It’s the fastest growing college sport in the nation. And we’re up to over 70 colleges that wrestle nationally,” said Kentucky USA women’s wrestling director Shirley Stephens, wife of Cumberlands women’s coach Donnie Stephens. Cumberlands provided logistical support Saturday.
Three college programs had recruiting tables at Tates Creek: Cumberlands, Lourdes University from Ohio and 2018 WCWA national champion Campbellsville, which just took over the NAIA’s No. 1 ranking.
Lee Miracle has been Campbellsvile’s women’s coach since 2013 and his daughter, Kayla Miracle, is a three-time university and U.S. Open champion. She graduated last year and continues to wrestle nationally and internationally.
“It’s just an awesome sport,” Miracle said. “Every guy that has ever wrestled will tell you how much they love it. Even when they’re older, they still love it. It’s just something that gets in your blood. It’s such a great thing, why wouldn’t women love it, too?”
High school embrace
After Harrison County Coach Josh Ashbrook found out there would be a girls’ state meet last year, he texted the one girl he had on his roster from the year before.
“I said, ‘Hey, we’re going to win the state title this year,’” Ashbrook said.
And he and his wife, Laura, also a physical education teacher, immediately got to work.
“We started recruiting the heck out of the girls,” Ashbrook said.
And they won the inaugural event in 2019. This year, Harrison County finished a close second and had champions in the 126 (Rileigh Funkhouser) and 285 classes (Autumn Burgan). Ashbrook owes their success to giving the girls the same attention he gives the boys.
“The first thing I did was give the girls their own practice time, but they have every option to come out and practice with the boys,” Ashbrook said. “If you want to go with the boys, you go with the boys. And then we have the girls practice directly after, but you’ve got to be at one or the other.”
While there will always be girls who want to take on the boys, Stephens believes girls-only events are key to growing the sport. The physical disadvantage for girls wrestling boys is a deterrent for many.
“When you give girls a level playing field, they’re going to come out for it,” Stephens said. “They want to be here. They want to have all the things that wrestling gives you: determination, pride, that toughness, that mental toughness that comes with doing this sport.”
Dennis Johnson, athletic director at wrestling hotbed Woodford County, the 13-time team state champion, believes it’s just a matter of time before the KHSAA sanctions girls’ wrestling, especially with a showing like Saturday’s.
“It’s crazy. When I pulled up (to the girls’ state meet) last year I got to park right in front. This year I’m parked way in the back of the parking lot,” Johnson said. “It’s got to be right there ready to get sanctioned, because I think it’s about time. It’s right there on the cusp.”
Complete results
Online at https://bit.ly/2GQzOUh
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 12:43 PM.
