For the second straight year, the NYSPHSAA high school girls wrestling tournament returns to downtown Albany\u2019s MVP Arena.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem junior Charleigh Eick is used to being the target on the mat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a name for myself last year, so I knew a lot of people were going to come and try to take me down,\u201d Eick said. \u201cBut I have to stay composed. That\u2019s the key concept of wrestling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eick is making her second trip to the girls wrestling individual championships, and this season became Bethlehem\u2019s first-ever girls Section II champion at 185 pounds. The girls tournament, now in just its second year as an official NYSPHSAA championship event, will bring 212 wrestlers from across the state to compete in one division spread over 13 weight classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharleigh is just a great ambassador for our program because she\u2019s showing the younger girls what\u2019s available out there,\u201d head coach Sarah Trombadore said. \u201cShe took a chance on this sport three years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eick won\u2019t be alone on the state stage. She\u2019ll be joined by senior Katie Huang, a 152-pound qualifier who hopes to make noise in her bracket.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone\u2019s beatable,\u201d Huang said. \u201cI\u2019ve beaten people who have had more experience than me. It\u2019s just a matter of what you\u2019re willing to do, how much effort you\u2019re willing to put in.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the NYSPHSAA, the number of girls in its wrestling system has climbed from about 300 to more than 1,100 in just two years, as more schools add girls teams or girls lineups alongside their boys programs.<\/p>\n
The boom mirrors what is happening in girls flag football. The NYSPHSAA has approved girls flag football as a state championship sport, hundreds of schools have added teams and thousands of girls now play across the state. Huang, Bethlehem\u2019s starting quarterback in flag football, straddles both trends as she splits her year between the gridiron and the mat.<\/p>\n
Currently, girls wrestle freestyle during the season, and some compete in both boys and girls events. Beginning in the 2026-27 school year, any girl who wrestles only girls will be eligible for the girls postseason tournament. Wrestlers who face boys at any point will have to remain on that path and attempt to qualify for the boys tournament instead, effectively forcing athletes to choose between two different postseason routes.<\/p>\n
Trombadore said Bethlehem\u2019s state qualifiers reflect the work of an entire roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though wrestling is very much an individual sport, it took a whole team to get my two state qualifiers here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The girls wrestling tournament begins Thursday at MVP Arena, where 212 wrestlers, including Eick and Huang, will compete for spots on the podium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second straight year, the NYSPHSAA high school girls wrestling tournament returns to downtown Albany\u2019s MVP Arena.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1593,153,155,154,58448,7596,139,25636],"class_list":["post-124664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-corey-james","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}