Patterson Mill and Edgewood met for a wrestling dual meet on Feb. 3 for one of both squads’ final contests of the regular season. It likely made history.
The Huskies feature eight girls wrestlers this season; the Rams nine.That was enough to fill most weight classes and compete in what Patterson Mill coach Shawn Vallowe estimates was the first girls-only regular season dual meet ever in Harford County. Host Edgewood had another mat down across the gym for a simultaneous boys meet with North Harford.
There the girls were, wrestling side by side and in the same gym, indistinguishable from their counterparts.
“That was really cool to see,” Vallowe said. “With the opportunities that are out there now, it gives them confidence when they look across the mat and see, ‘I’m wrestling a girl just like me.’ It’s been cool to showcase them, under the lights, just like we do with the guys.”
Girls wrestling is growing exponentially in Maryland and nationwide, and Harford County is at the forefront. Participation on some local teams has doubled — or even tripled — in recent years, a trend that has area coaches and wrestlers enamored with what the future may hold.
Still, barriers to entry and old stigmas persist that keep other girls out. And as numbers grow, so too do the difficulties of overcoming some of those challenges. A fair path forward is a priority.
“I hope that it grows and just doesn’t stop,” Havre de Grace sophomore and state champion Madison Birth said. “Everything we have for the guys, hopefully we’ll have it for the girls at some point.”
Vallowe, who’s been with Patterson Mill for 13 years and is now in his first season as head coach, said his team went from having usually one girls dual meet per season and needing to go outside Harford County to find opponents, to participating in seven duals and three tournaments this winter. Harford Tech coach Jay Burrell said his team went from having one girl on its roster when he took over in 2016 to 12 this season. Edgewood, Havre de Grace, Fallston and Perryville also saw increased participation.
More teams with larger pools of girls allow for expanded girls-only duals and tournaments, like the one between the Rams and Huskies earlier this month, eliminating co-ed matches that push some away from the sport. Girls’ participation grew enough for the Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference, comprised of the 15 public high schools in Harford and Cecil counties, to establish a girls bracket at its championship tournament for the first time last season.
The number of girls wrestlers has increased 53% in the state since 2020, the first year Maryland sponsored a girls state championship, according to a report from USA Wrestling. “It’s a big selling point when you’re able to offer a girls-only postseason,” Burrell said. In that same time, girls’ participation has more than doubled nationally — there’s now more than 65,000 high school girls wrestlers in the United States. Maryland ranked 30th in the country in total girls wrestlers as of last year, according to the report.
Last season’s UCBAC tournament girls-only bracket experienced varying degrees of success. Coaches say the field lacked overall numbers but that they expect it to grow at this year’s iteration being held Friday and Saturday at Edgewood. Ten weight classes crowned girls champions in 2024, and Birth placed fifth in the co-ed 106-pound division.
Still, roadblocks exist.
Birth’s introduction to wrestling was atypical. She got started as a child when her father couldn’t stop her from running onto the mats during her brothers’ practices. So he threw her into the action with a youth program when she was old enough. She was hooked.
“I grew up in wrestling, and it was a brotherhood,” Scott Birth said. “Madison’s growing up, and it’s a sisterhood.”
It’s not that easy for most.
Coaches say some parents are still unsure about letting their daughters wrestle because of assumptions that it’s reserved only for boys. Other girls are uncomfortable with wrestling boys, which is still a reality for girls at schools that lack large girls rosters — several Harford County schools still have zero girls on their teams.
Scheduling also gets complicated as girls’ numbers grow. Teams that boast sizable girls rosters can’t always match up against opponents with equal numbers, leaving some girls without matches and giving them regular-season schedules that can look wildly different from boys on their own team.
“We’ll continue to build on this,” Burrell said. “It’s happened a few times where I have a girl who is extremely interested in the sport and they don’t come out because they come back to me and say, ‘My mom won’t let me. My dad won’t let me.’ There’s still a little stigma on it being too hard for girls. When in reality, any girl with the might and the right mindset would be capable. It’s all mental. I wish more people would take that into account and really get to know these girls.”
Increasing participation will cure most of these issues. Outreach begins at the top.
Vallowe and Scott Birth spend time training girls interested in wrestling at the youth level, an effort they say has led to increased participation in programs that feed directly to high schools. It’s also an expanding sport in the college ranks, giving high schoolers a path to the next level through wrestling that didn’t previously exist. The NCAA added women’s wrestling as a championship sport in January as 76 institutions now have programs with plans for 17 more next year.
And more numbers mean more funding. Ideally, Vallowe and Burrell said, girls wrestling will one day be its own sponsored varsity sport. That would allow for girls teams to have their own coaches, schedules and practices. A participation threshold must be met for that to happen and Harford County isn’t there yet, but it could soon if current trends continue.
“You’re starting to see it spread,” Vallowe said. “There’s more teams that have girls than teams that do not.”
There’s been times over his tenure, like his historic dual a few weeks ago, that illustrated to Vallowe the sharp upward trajectory the sport is traversing. But none displayed the true scope that a girls-only tournament hosted by Patterson Mill did. It had 115 participants from schools across Maryland, and the coach is certain that figure will grow next year. Until then, girls wrestling in Harford County has proved it’s here to stay.
Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/TaylorJLyons.
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