Girls Wrestling in PA

May 17, 2023. Remember that date. That's the date when girls wrestling was officially sanctioned as sport by the PIAA in Pennsylvania becoming the 38th state in the country to do so.

The PIAA had said they would consider girls wrestling once 100 schools sponsored a team.

J.P. McCaskey was the first to jump in, when they started an official girls wrestling team on March 17, 2020. While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed things down a bit, by the end of 2020 there were 9 teams. A year later at the end of 2021, the number was up to 31. Fast forward another year, and there were 90 teams at the end of 2022. On February 14, 2023, Pennridge was the 100th school to say yes to girls wrestling.

The PIAA got the ball rolling quickly after Pennridge's announcement, as they had their first of three readings on the application for sanctioning girls wrestling at their meeting on February 22, 2023. The vote was unanimous. One month later on March 22, the second reading was unanimously approved. With no meeting scheduled for April, the stage was set for May 17 to make it official. By then, there were 111 official teams. The third and final vote was also unanimous among the PIAA board. Three years and two months – 1,156 days – since the first school decided to create a girls wrestling team, girls wrestling is now officially a PIAA sport starting with the 2023-24 season!

It has been a long and winding road for everyone who's been involved in making this happen for girls in PA. That mission of sanctioning is now complete. But there still are a couple hundred more schools left to get on board with girls wrestling. How many programs will there be by the time the 2023-24 season gets underway in December?

Plenty of things will be decided and announced in the coming months, including how the PIAA Wrestling Championships and the entire post-season will take shape. One thing is for certain, the girls will be joining the boys at the Giant Center in March! Stay tuned for all that info over the next few months.

Visit sanctionpa.com today to find lots of information on how you can help start a girls program at your school. There is even a template document and a template presentation you can use in your proposal for your school.

• Sanctioning FAQs
• PA Girls Wrestling Sanctioning Initiative informational packet
• One Page Summary of the #SanctionPA movement

NOTE: We stopped tracking when schools started a girls program once the PIAA took over the sport on July 1, 2023.

Progress Chart | School List | Schools by District

Number of Schools Sponsoring Girls Wrestling

Schools that have officially started a girls wrestling program

Breakdown of Schools by District