Northeast Women’s Folkstyle Wrestling Championships
Lyman Memorial High School, Lebanon, CT
March 7, 2009

On March 7th, 2009 USAWCT (USA Wrestling, Connecticut) held the first Northeast Regional women’s folkstyle wrestling tournament.  There are clearly too few opportunities for women and girls to wrestle in their own events.  They generally compete in boys events where they can be competitive through the middle school level.  Although some state scholastic athletic organizations (e.g. Maine, Texas, California and Hawaii) provide opportunities for girls to wrestle each other, Connecticut is one of the many states that does not.  This event was organized first to provide an opportunity for girls in the Northeast to wrestle other girls and secondly to provide an opportunity for girls to experience a higher level of competition than a local or state tournament generally provides, without the expense of traveling to the major national events. 

This first time event drew 51 girls from seven states, 16 Elementary, 16 Middle School, 19 High School and 2 Open division wrestlers.  This was helped in part by publication of the event through the USA Wrestling National organization and through significant efforts to get the word out to all of the USA Wrestling Women’s Directors and State Chairmen in the Northeastern United States.  There were girls relatively new to the sport of wrestling, there was at least one All American in the High School division and several national level medalists in the Elementary division.  The complete tournament brackets and results can be found at the USAWCT web site (http://www.usawct.org).  Discussions among the coaches and parents at the event support our hope that we will have an even larger turn out for the 2010 tournament. 

The Northeast regional event drew wrestlers from seven states:
33            Connecticut
4            Massachusetts
4            Pennsylvania
3            Maine
1            New Jersey
2            New Hampshire
2            New York
2            Rhode Island

Wrestlers from six states won Gold medals.  Connecticut had a very strong showing in numbers and champions in the Elementary and Middle School divisions, winning 8 of the 9 divisions.  The champions in the five High School divisions came from four different states, Maine with 2 and New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island with one each.  The Open division was won by a wrestler from New York.  There were competitive matches in every weight class and even the eventual Outstanding Wrestler faced a serious challenging match.  This is the type of competition that we hope to see more of in the future.

The High School Outstanding Wrestler award for the tournament went to Tierra Williams from Maine.  Tierra was a Maine Girl’s State Champion in 2009 and an All American at the USGWA Nationals in 2008.  Tierra is looking very strong and wrestling very well two weight classes lower this year than when she made All American in 2008. 

We are looking forward to seeing more girls from more states in 2010 and more great wrestling !!!

Results (PDF)