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BELFAST, Maine — Girls’ and women’s high school wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports nationwide.
This year, the NCAA added women’s wrestling as its 91st championship sport, creating more opportunities for women to compete at the collegiate level.
While wrestling is becoming more popular at schools in Maine, it’s not yet a varsity sport. Girls on Belfast’s Lions team are part of the growing interest that’s driving efforts to make it one.
“It makes me feel powerful,” Elianna Speed, the Troy Howard Middle School wrestling team captain, said.
Right now, wrestling teams across the state are co-ed. That’s why, earlier this year, Belfast athletic director Susan Robbins submitted a proposal to the Maine Principal’s Association to recognize and support girls’ wrestling as a team sport in Maine.
“The reason that I tackled this so to speak is just to create opportunities for girls in sports and I really believe that girls wrestling could become their own team within the next couple of years if we just put a little bit of time and effort and get all the data points together,” Robbins said.
However, a minimum of 10 schools must form girls’ teams to make it an official MPA sport separate from the boys’.
“We have teams of girls in a sport that is growing very rapidly and that also creates opportunities for our girls to compete at the next level collegiately if they’d like to,” Robbins said.
Robbins proposes that area divisions be created for the next season until the state reaches that goal.
“Until those numbers get to a point where each of those schools have enough numbers to support their own team and then we get to that number that the MPA is looking at,” Robbins said.
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This season, Belfast area high schools hosted four all-girl exhibitions, with participation from schools across the state, including Calais, Skowhegan, and Gardiner. Robbins said 40-50 girls participated in the exhibitions.
“It just shows that there’s a statewide team of making this growth happen supporting the girls when they have less opportunities to go get matches,” Tony Gilmore, the head coach for the Troy Howard Middle School wrestling team, said.
While meets and exhibitions for the high school season just wrapped up, the middle school season is just starting.
Gilmore says they had three girls on the team last year, which has tripled this year, and educators across the state are working to make more opportunities for girls in sports.
“The whole goal is to get you to the high school level so you can start competing in girls only tournaments,” Gilmore said.
“All educators are here because they want to have a positive impact on girls’ lives,” Robbins said.
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