Tim Ruschell thought it was long overdue.
Ryle’s wrestling coach said it was about time to sanction girls wrestling, and last February the Kentucky High School Athletic Association listened. The 2023-24 season is the sport’s first, but there have been unsanctioned tournaments for five years.
“Wrestling itself, it’s really a tough sport,” Ryle senior Viktoriya Emelianova said. “You have to be there ready mentally. And also, you have to be … staying on weight. It’s just physically a hard sport.”
According to Nate Naasz of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, Kentucky is one of 44 states and Washington, D.C. offering girls high school wrestling. It is considered an emerging sport in Indiana, New York and Virginia and unsanctioned in Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, Mississippi and Louisiana.
According to the KHSAA, 90 schools have self-reported offering girls wrestling (https://khsaa.org/khsaa-participation-report-teams-by-levels/), with 395 varsity participants. Eight Northern Kentucky schools – Boone County, Cooper, Highlands, Holmes, Newport, Ryle, Simon Kenton and Walton-Verona – are fielding at least partial teams.
Scotty Teater is president of the Kentucky Wrestling Coaches Association. He said the first unsanctioned girls state tournament in 2019 drew just 40 competitors, but by 2023 there were around 400.
Teater said the reason for such growth is generational.
“This Generation X, it sees that girls can do things, too,” Teater said. “They’ve got daughters coming up, and they want ‘em to wrestle.”
Definitely fun
Emelianova is the Ryle’s lone girls wrestler; she’s in her third season and competes in junior varsity tournaments against the boys at 190 pounds. She’s also a state champion – she won the Class 3A shot put last season and finished second in discus. Her interest in wrestling started when she was a sophomore at Sycamore.
And yes, Emelianova has pinned boys.
“It was fun, definitely,” she said. “I feel like none of the boys really expected it.”
Ruschell could’ve told the boys about Emelianova’s fearlessness.
“She’s not afraid, she gets in there and goes after it,” he said. “She uses a lot of technique to beat some of the kids in there. She’s getting pretty good with her headlock and some cradles and some other things.
“She can stand up get off the mat, she understands being in control. A lot of the basics, she can work wrestling, so she can beat a lot of guys that are stronger than her just by using her technique.”
Simon Kenton coach Scott Smith said seven girls went out for wrestling, including his daughter Allie Smith. The Pioneers practice at Northern Kentucky Martial Arts Academy in Ludlow, which he owns.
“It was about where I was hoping to be,” Scott Smith said. “A full team is 13, and I knew we wouldn’t get that the first year.”
Walton-Verona coach Jason Moore has four girls on his roster. He said some volleyball and soccer players were interested but had committed to travel teams.
“We haven’t had a big interest,” Moore said. “… I think there are a lot of girls that have talked about giving it a try. I think they’re a little bit hesitant this first year.”
To Moore, coaching wrestling is intensely personal – he didn’t win a high school state title at Harrison County, and he didn’t wrestle collegiately at Eastern Kentucky University. He thinks about all that “Every day I walk into practice.”
“One of the things that drives me as a coach is falling short of my goals as an athlete, and wanting to help these kids not feel that pain,” he wrote in a text message. “I was (so) devastated after not winning a state title that I stayed away from the sport for almost a decade after high school.”
Scott Smith said girls wrestling is different from boys in ways beyond the physical, especially with some girls’ attitudes toward practice and competition. He said a one-size-fits-all training room doesn’t work.
“Some girls can be trained and treated just like a guy, but there’s a lot that can’t,” he said. “I definitely understand that girls are looking at it differently. They need that camaraderie, they need that together time, whereas some guys in competition, they’re like lone wolves; they’re solo, they don’t need to be hyped up.”
Almost gone
Women’s Olympic wrestling has been around since the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, but it and the men’s events were almost pinned in 2013, when the International Olympic Committee removed them. After additional women’s events were added and rules changes in the men’s program were made, the IOC reinstated wrestling for the 2016 Games in Rio De Janeiro.
Scott Smith said in between, moms, grandmothers and families noticed the increase in girls participation.
“I think girls wrestling really helped to rejuvenate wrestling in general,” he said.
The boys and girls state wrestling tournaments are scheduled to return in February to Alltech Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington after a three-year run at George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester. Teater said there wasn’t enough space for both at GRC.
“Now that the COVID issue is over, we really wanted to go back to having a full 32-man boys state and the girls with 16,” Teater said. “I think KHSAA’s feeling that they want to put the girls in the same spot as the boys.”
Emelianova, meanwhile, is enjoy wrestling against both genders in her final season.
“When I do wrestle boys, normally they tell me that I am definitely tougher than I look,” she said. “That just feels great.”