Mar 6, 2023 3 min read

The magic number has been reached and then some.

Now comes the hard part.

When Pennridge High School recently started a girls wrestling program at the school, it became the 100th in the state. It also qualified the sport for recognition by the PIAA.

That was the easy part. Now, the PIAA will handle it from here, working out all the kinks, organizing the teams into districts, then sections and, maybe most important of all, determining the postseason criteria, settling on a place to hold the state tournament and determining the criteria that will get the girls there.

“They voted on it once. They still have two readings left,” said Frank Vulcano, the athletic director at Canon-McMillan High School and head of the WPIAL wrestling steering committee.

“The PIAA has to approve it as a sanctioned sport. It will be (set up) just like the boys, same rules and everything.”

One of the major changes with the establishing of the girls program is that girls will no longer be permitted to wrestle on the boys team, according to Vulcano.

“With another school, they would have to co-op,” Vulcano said. “They can still enter the postseason as an individual for each school.”

Four area schools have already started programs. Canon-McMillan was the first, applying for the distinction in October of 2021. Fort Cherry came next in June of 2022, then Burgettstown in November off 2022 and Trinity in December of 2022.

The first school to be approved was J.P. McCaskey in Lancaster. That school blazed the trail in March of 2020. The latest program to be approved was York Suburban last month.

The list of the teams and when it received approval can be found on the web at sanctionpa.com/schools.

Canon-McMillan, which leads the PIAA in wrestling team victories for boys, won the girls West Region tournament Sunday at Kiski High School. The top five wrestlers in each weight class advanced to the state tournament.

Canon-McMillan finished with a team score of 168.5 points. Saegertown (121) and North Allegheny (114) finished second and third, respectively.

The Big Macs won four titles. Valarie Solorio pinned Slippery Rock’s Lexi Doerflinger at 3:49 to win the 100-pound title. Madi Mansmann won the 106-pound weight class with a pin of Saegertown’s Emma Spencer in 1:29. Paige Ward (155) and Natalie Rush (190) won their respective weight classes via falls.

The three other tournaments were held at Parkland High School for the East, Manheim Township for the Central, and Milton High School for the Northeast.

The Pennsylvania Girls State Championships will be held Sunday, March 12 at Central Dauphin High School in Harrisburg.