Gaby Barone was 4 when she decided to become a wrestler. Her father, Jake, wanted her to be his little princess, but Barone insisted on trading tiaras for ear protectors, just like her father and brother.
And those ear protectors have coincidentally led her toward a crown. Barone is looking to win her third consecutive state title with the Falcons. Previously, she won the 100-pound division and now she’s off to a 3-0 start at 120 pounds this season.
“She took a leap forward with it and she was pretty good right off the gate,” Jake said. “She was beating kids that were already wrestling for two years.”
The freshman captain competed against the boys on varsity for two years — placing at the Section VI state qualifier both years — and is the only girl in the region to become a two-time state champion. She’s working out three times a day to make it a three-peat.
“I feel really honored,” Barone said. “I’ve always felt like a bit of a leader and I feel like a lot of people see that, and I love being able to help the girls out. They look up to me and that makes me feel really good about myself knowing that I can be a role model.”
Girls wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports in the nation, alongside flag football. Per the National Federation of State High School Associations, last year alone there was a 60% increase in girls wrestling at high schools nationwide.
New York had an informal state championship the last two seasons, but girls wrestling became a state-governed sport this season. The first Section VI state qualifier is slated for Feb. 14, with the first official state tournament to be held Feb. 27 at MVP Arena in Albany, the site of the boys tournament.
Schools are also adopting girls wrestling teams and Section VI is hosting a non-official dual championship Feb. 1
“I think the girls were all just waiting for the opportunity for someone to tell them that it was okay to go out there and do it,” said Niagara Wheatfield coach Bill Edwards, whose daughters, Gwyneth and Meghan, were standouts for Lewiston-Porter and now compete for John Carroll.
NW is in its third year of being an official program, and were part of a combined Niagara Frontier League program last year before developing their own. To help spark interest and familiarize girls with the sport, the Falcons allow the sport to be tried in middle school gym classes and speak to the freshman girls about joining the team.
Niagara Wheatfield has almost always had a strong wrestling program for the boys, and that reputation is likely what gets girls interested in joining. But getting girls to buy into a sport that they likely haven’t had much exposure to is a different game when you consider the intensity of the sport and the lack of opportunities girls had until recently.
The best way to do this according to Bill Edwards is to mix the difficulty with attainable goals, and sprinkle in some fun to keep the feeling of community strong and morale high while doing the work.
“We’re sending these girls out to fight other girls and it’s extremely hard in an emotional kind of way, and some people thrive on that and some people can learn to thrive on that, which is one of the things we’re teaching,” Edwards said. “We’re teaching them to do hard stuff with discipline, which is the kind of life skill you want as an adult.”
Barone echoed the importance of the lessons learned in wrestling that transfer to other things, such as self-confidence and discipline and having the grit and willpower to push through and achieve your goals.
“(Wrestling allows for) learning how to pursue something, learning how to get what you want and how to work on it,” Barone said.