Utah's Sage Mortimer gets her hand raised after winning a 16U freestyle title in Fargo (Photo/John Sachs, Tech-Fall.com)Add the state of Utah to the growing list of states to officially sanction girls' wrestling.
The Board of Trustees of the Utah High School Athletics Association -- governing body for prep sports within the state -- has approved girls' wrestling beginning in the 2020-21 school year, the Standard-Examiner newspaper has reported.
The Ogden, Utah-based newspaper added that the inaugural official girls wrestling state tournament could be anticipated to take place sometime in February or March 2021.
"There's much to figure out in the meantime," the Standard-Examiner continued. "The Board of Trustees' approval simply approved sanctioning and nothing else at the moment.
"Details like how many classifications, weight classes, regions, state tournament logistics and many more have yet to be figured out," UHSAA assistant director Jon Oglesby said.
The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that Utah high schools added 23 participants in girls wrestling for a total of 124 when comparing the 2017-18 school year to 2018-19.
Girls' high school wrestling has enjoyed tremendous growth in the past couple years. By InterMat's count, Utah becomes the 20th state to officially add girls' wrestling to the list of officially sanctioned high school sports. In calendar year 2019, five states have sanctioned girls' wrestling, including New Mexico, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas and Maryland. To provide some perspective ... as recently as the beginning of 2018, six states had separate state wrestling championships for girls: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Tennessee, Texas and Washington State. During 2018, eight additional states announced the establishment of a girls' state championships.
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