National wrestling event returns to VB, includes 500 female wrestlers
Girls wrestling continues to be one of the fastest growing high school sports.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It’s no longer uncommon to see high school girls dual on the wrestling mat. In fact, girls wrestling is one of the fasting growing sports out there.
At the Virginia Beach Sports Center over the weekend over 5,000 high school wrestlers gathered for the National showcase seeking the title of All- American. 500 of those athletes were high school females.
“I believe its the highest growing sport in the country,” said CEO of NHSCA Bobby Ferraro. “Our female number is at 500 that was our capacity number for that division and if we didn’t have to cap it we would have had more. The female sport of wrestling is just at its infant stages and they’re going to progress and be really amazing overtime.”
Athletes traveled from all 50 mats to compete in front of over 200 college coaches. With a total of 60 mats across the facility, it makes this one of the largest wrestling events in the entire country.
This event comes to Virginia Beach just days after a local university added its first women’s wrestling program. The Apprentice School announced last week that women’s wrestling will become the school’s newest sport offering. It is the only college wrestling program in the Hampton Roads area for both men and women.
Girls at the wrestling showcase this weekend may feel like they have more to prove then their male counterparts, but that’s not stopping them with the opportunities that lie ahead.
“I was doing jiu-jitsu for a couple years and then they wanted me to adjust my form and be more aggressive but then I just started doing wrestling and I liked it better,” said 16 year old Ella Wells who drove from Georgia for the showcase. “I feel like I always have to be doing something and working harder than everybody else.”
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