Girls high school wrestling growing in Nevada, United States

Mika Yoffee remembers one of the first wrestling practices she attended when she was in fifth grade. Amongst a sea of young wrestlers, Yoffee stood out.

It wasn’t because of her yellow singlet. She was the only girl in a room full of boys.

“Leading up to high school, I didn’t think I was going to wrestle girls,” said Yoffee, now a junior at SLAM! Nevada. “I thought I was going to have to wrestle boys up until college, maybe. Growing up, I only wrestled boys.”

That’s the reality many girls in Southern Nevada faced if they wanted to wrestle in high school. But that’s changed.

Girls wrestling is rapidly growing around the country. According to participation numbers from the National Federation of High School Sports Associations, 64,257 girls wrestled in high school in the 2023-24 school year, a 102 percent increase from 2021-22 (31,654).

The same trend applies to Nevada. According to participation numbers from the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, 509 girls wrestled in the state in 2023-24. That’s an increase from 388 wrestlers in 2022-23. The NIAA expects those numbers to continue to grow.

“It exploded,” Centennial coach Kevin Caruso said. “It seems the level of competition has shot up the last couple of years. They’ve taken to the sport and are running with it.”

Nevada’s top 112 wrestlers will compete at the girls wrestling state invitational at Rafter 3C Arena in Fallon on Friday and Saturday. The 5A, 3A and 2A boys wrestling state meets are also in Fallon.

This will be the fourth year the NIAA will put on a girls state meet. Girls wrestling isn’t a fully sanctioned sport. It’s instead a division offered along with the four classes (5A, 4A, 3A and 2A) for boys.

Centennial won the Southern Region title last month at Bonanza over SLAM! Nevada. Centennial, Northern region champion Reed and SLAM! Nevada, the defending state champion, will all contend for this year’s state championship.

‘Part of the trailblazers’

Centennial and SLAM! Nevada have developed a rich girls wrestling tradition in a short time. Several of their alums are now wrestling in college. Several of their current wrestlers are nationally ranked.

“I love seeing new girls get into the sport and seeing them find that passion that I once did,” Centennial’s Sandilynn Paopao said. “Seeing that passion in others also lights a fire in me and makes me want to help them on their path. Them finding their love helps me find my love.”

Paopao (140 pounds) and Kitana Leafaatoto (235) won regional titles for Centennial this year. Both will be seeking their second state titles in Fallon.

“I didn’t know anything about wrestling,” said Leafaatoto, who started wrestling just a few years ago. “Ever since I got into wrestling, I always wanted to wish that I went back in time to do it when I was little. I never loved a sport so much.”

SLAM! Nevada had five wrestlers win individual region titles — Bertha Cabrera (105 pounds), Emma Albanese (115), Noelani Lutz (120), Yoffee (125) and Billie Bonwell (170). Bonwell and Albanese are going for their fourth individual state titles.

“It’s really cool being a part of the trailblazers,” Bonwell said. “From my freshman year compared to my senior year now, the substantial growth has been so much.”

‘The real deal’

SLAM! Nevada coach Bill Sullivan, who joined the school when it opened in 2017, has been coaching wrestling for over 30 years. The first girl he coached at the youth level was Sterling Dias in 2011. Dias is now wrestling at Iowa and was the runner-up at the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships at 101 pounds.

Sullivan said SLAM! Nevada’s girls program was “kind of mixed” with the boys when he arrived at the school. The girls broke off in 2018 and, with limited opportunities to wrestle other girls in Nevada, the team traveled across the country to find opponents.

SLAM! Nevada won the first two girls wrestling championships in Southern Nevada in 2019 and 2020. Those were held alongside the boys junior varsity championships. There will be state champions in 14 weight classes this year in Fallon, an increase from 12 last year.

“Now, it’s the real deal,” said Sullivan, the girls director for USA Wrestling Nevada. “Our numbers have doubled and tripled every year. The growth of women’s wrestling has been phenomenal.”

‘Fell back in love’

Caruso said more girls participating in jiu-jitsu and other combat sports have played a role in the rise of girls wrestling. That’s how Albanese, who did jiu-jitsu, got involved with the sport. Still, she was in the minority.

“I was on a team full of guys,” Albanese said. “I was the only girl for all of my youth. The last four or five years, the sport’s grown so much. I (used to) sign up for a girls bracket and there’d be no girls in the bracket, so I’d have to compete against all guys.”

Now with an environment just for girls to wrestle, Sullivan said the stigma that a girl would have to compete against boys has begun to evaporate.

“If you were a girl and you wanted to wrestle, you walked into a room of 50 dudes and have 50 guys’ eyes on you,” Sullivan said. “That’s a deterrent. You had to be a very determined and willful human to function in that.”

That’s what happened to Lutz who, like her other SLAM! Nevada teammates, was the only girl on her youth wrestling team.

“When I started it was mostly with the boys,” Lutz said. “I was always getting beat up every day. I hated it. Once COVID ended, I went to a gym and it was all girls. I fell back in love with the sport.”

Next steps

The NCAA officially sanctioned girls wrestling as its 91st sport in January. Sullivan and Caruso expect more Division I colleges to add women’s wrestling programs soon.

In Nevada, the NIAA is still monitoring the growth of the sport before it gets fully sanctioned. More discussions could ramp up soon when the NIAA begins the realignment process for winter sports.

Forty-seven states have sanctioned girls wrestling or a girls wrestling division, like Nevada.

Sullivan said Nevada is on the “right path.” He said some next steps to grow the sport start at the district level, where CCSD schools offer coaching positions and stipends just for girls coaches, and scheduling and transportation for just girls events.

The girls wrestling community in Southern Nevada “was really, really small,” Cabrera said. “Now we got these big tournaments and big colleges and programs that are interested in us. We can also show them we’re just as good at wrestling as the guys are.”

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.