North Allegheny High School to host first WPIAL girls wrestling championships
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — History will be made this weekend in local high school sports when official champions will be crowned for the first time at North Allegheny High School.
Over the past few years, wrestling has become one of the fastest-growing sports for high school girls, but the WPIAL has never officially awarded championships on the mat – until now.
Four years ago, North Allegheny High School assembled the first girls wrestling team in Western Pennsylvania. And after a lot of hard work and lobbying at the state and local levels, the school will host the first-ever WPIAL girls wrestling championships on Saturday.
"It's very special for these girls," said North Allegheny girls wrestling head coach Dan Heckert. "These girls were the standard bearers, they stuck their necks on the line and they get to have the pride of doing it in their own gym."
"It kinda feels surreal to be so close to the first WPIAL-sanctioned tournament," said senior wrestler Leyna Rumpler. "And it's kinda nice to close out my senior year being part of a sanctioned sport that when I first started it wasn't really recognized."
"When I first started wrestling, we would go to tournaments with under 100 girls. Sometimes under 50 or 20," said N.A. wrestler Brenna Collery. "We just had a tournament with over 33 teams coming in and it's really fun to see how this sport has grown from almost no one to this huge, booming sport."
"It's really mindblowing," said N.A. wrestler Maya Scott. "We're here and we mean something. And holding the WPIALs here is just phenomenal."
All high school sports provide life lessons for girls, but due to its sometimes grueling nature, wrestling builds character like no other.
"I really think it's help build me as a person," said N.A. wrestler Audrey Morrison. "And it's kind of made me realize more about myself."
"I definitely think the mental toughness from wrestling will stay instilled in my mind," Rumpler said. "That's just a drive that you can't give up. It's just something that stays with you the rest of your life."
And speaking of life-changing events, these girls have a chance to make their mark on both North Allegheny and Western Pennsylvania sports history by winning a WPIAL title on Saturday.
"For years, they've been walking in that room and all you see are boys' names," Heckert said. "And now that they get a chance to go after it and get their name on their own banner. That's something that no one will be able to take away from them."
"The idea of seeing my name on one of those banners is crazy," Collery said. "That's next level and to think that it's even possible just to have a WPIAL championship is very exciting, but to think I could win a championship myself is just crazy."
Nearly 200 girls will wrestle in the WPIAL finals and if you'd like to be a part of history, head up to North Allegheny on Saturday, when matches start at 9 a.m. and finals will take place between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. that afternoon.