KOKOMO — Friday’s Indiana High School Girls Wrestling State Finals may have been the end of the road for two Hancock County standout senior wrestlers, but the sport is just in its infant stages.
Girls wrestling is an emerging Indiana High School Athletic Association sport and is expected to be a fully-sanctioned IHSAA sport next season.
“It’s great and I’m so grateful to be at the forefront of growing girls wrestling and I will definitely be back to help grow the program and fight as hard as I can. I’m so happy to give the younger generations everything that I can,” New Palestine senior Sydney DeLois said after her final high school match.
DeLois was one of nine county wrestlers competing at the state championships held at Kokomo Memorial Gymnasium.
New Palestine had five representatives and Greenfield-Central had four. Of the nine, seven earned state medals.
It was the fourth straight year DeLois has wrestled in the high school finals. In her first two seasons, girls wrestling was a club sport. It has been an emerging IHSAA sport the last two years.
She has had two fourth-place finishes and two thirds, and was third on Friday in the 125-pound class.
She won by injury default in the third-place match. Her scheduled opponent, Southport’s K’yla Johnson, had to medically forfeit after getting hurt in her semifinal contest.
“Of course it’s not the way that I wanted it to end, but I’m very happy with myself,” DeLois said.
“When I was younger I used to go to girls state and I think I went to the first one. The [size of crowd] has changed. The competition has gotten so great over the past few years, it’s amazing.”
DeLois said she does not plan on wrestling in college, but she plans on staying close to the sport.
“Wrestling is a lifestyle. Once you get in it, you can’t really get out,” she said. “I’m happy to come back and coach and help the younger people.”
Greenfield-Central’s Kylie Smith-Foster earned a fifth-place medal in the 110-pound class.
It was her third state tournament. She was a runner-up as a freshman, missed the tournament due to COVID-19 as a sophomore and was eliminated in the first round last year.
“I’m happy how my record turned out and I’m really proud of the girls today. I felt I put up a pretty good fight with all of my matches,” Smith-Foster said. “That was my goal this year, to place.”
Smith-Foster said she was one of only two girls wrestlers on the Greenfield-Central team during her freshman season. The Cougars had an 11-wrestler roster this season.
Like DeLois, Smith-Foster is glad to be a part of the growing sport and would like to help out as a coach now that her high school career is over.
“I’m really proud of (girls wrestling) and thankful I got to be a part of it. The coaching staff is amazing. The boys (team) supports us,” she said. “There were only two of us on the team my freshman year. It keeps growing and growing. I love when new girls come in and try it. I love it and love being able to help them and coach them.”
Greenfield-Central freshman Asia Bowen earned a fifth-place finish in the 105-pound class. G-C’s Jasmine Camacho (155) and New Palestine’s Ella Morris (145) both finished sixth and New Palestine’s Ezra Wagner (130) and June Wagner-Gilbert (135) were seventh-place finishers.
Greenfield-Central’s Keely Allen (235) and New Palestine’s Julia Champ (155) also qualified for the event.
Greenfield-Central coach Josh Holden said the growth of girls wrestling is much more than just the number of girls that are now competing.
“People look at the numbers and see how many girls are going out for wrestling and it’s not just that,” he said. “We’re not just getting girls coming out, we’re getting tough, athletic, smart, talented girls who work hard and are good. We’ve got girls all over the place beating boys now. We’ve got state qualifiers (in the boys tournament). It’s unreal how good they are now … and they’re hungry for it.”
Holden said it was noticeable to him that the banners hanging at Kokomo Memorial Coliseum for its successful basketball teams didn’t specify boys or girls until the late 1900s. The banners dated back to the 1920s, but IHSAA-sanctioned girls basketball didn’t begin until 1975.
“The girls didn’t have the opportunities,” he said. “It was just the state tournament at some point. The girls got the opportunity and look at all their banners up there. That’s what we’re living through. I didn’t get to see it happen for basketball and the high school opportunities that girls got, but we’re living through it (with girls wrestling) right now.”
