High school · Iowa
Iowa high school girls' wrestling
IGHSAU has crowned girls' state champions in Iowa since 2023. 3,468 girls wrestled here in 2025-26, at 220 schools.
By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026
The association
Sanctioned
- Association
- IGHSAU
- Girls' championship
- Yes, first held in 2023
- Format
- A separate girls' championship, its own event
- Source
- ighsau.org, read 2026-09-03
What the record shows
Two Iowa tournaments must not be confused. The Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association ran an unsanctioned girls state tournament from 2019, reaching 695 entrants by 2022. The IGHSAU voted in January 2022 to sanction the sport and held its own first championship on February 2 and 3, 2023 at Xtream Arena. The IGHSAU governs girls sports in Iowa; the IHSAA governs boys.
The 2026-27 Iowa championship carries the dates, the venue, and the qualifying path.
How many girls wrestle in Iowa
The NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, girls' wrestling column. Every number here is the survey's own; nothing is estimated or carried forward.
That is 478 more girls than 2024-25, up 16 percent.
Weight classes
IGHSAU uses the NFHS 14 class girls' set. The NFHS offers three, and a state association picks one and cannot switch mid-season.
- 100
- 105
- 110
- 115
- 120
- 125
- 130
- 135
- 140
- 145
- 155
- 170
- 190
- 235
Scratch weights, in pounds. Most associations add a growth allowance partway through the season, so a bracket in February may read two pounds higher than this. Read off ighsau.org on 2026-09-03. Every set at every level puts this beside the NCAA, NAIA and international weights.
What to do if your school has no girls' team
IGHSAU publishes a rule for this. Iowa uses cooperative sharing agreements, where a host school runs the program and students from non-host schools join it. Beyond that, the IGHSAU publishes a provision only for nonpublic school students: one whose school does not offer the sport may participate in her public district of residence, or in a contiguous district if the resident district does not offer it either.
From ighsau.org, read 2026-09-03. The rule is the association's to change; the link goes to the page that will carry the change.
The general path, in the order that works: ask the athletic director first, in writing, whether the school will enter you and under what rule. Most schools have never been asked, and the answer to a written question goes on the record in a way a hallway conversation does not. If the school will not enter you, ask IGHSAU directly what a student in your position may do; associations answer these, and the answer is the one that binds your school.
Train while you sort it out. A club room is where most girls in a state without a school team actually wrestle, and club season runs when the school season does not. The clubs in Iowa are listed by city, with the girls' rooms and girls' practices flagged where the club says so.
Where it goes next
The state final is not the end of the line. These are the two places a Iowa wrestler goes from here.
College in the state
17 colleges here sponsor women's wrestling, from the directory built off each school's own athletics staff page.
- IowaNCAA D1
- Upper IowaNCAA D2
- Buena VistaNCAA D3
- Central (IA)NCAA D3
- CoeNCAA D3
- Cornell (IA)NCAA D3
- DubuqueNCAA D3
- LorasNCAA D3
and 9 more
Wrestlers from Iowa
3 women in the record we keep grew up here. Their careers started in a room like the one down the road.
Before the season starts
A girl's legal minimum wrestling weight is built on the 19 percent body fat floor the NFHS sets for girls, not the boys' 7 percent. That is roughly sixteen pounds of difference for a fifteen year old, and every app built on the boys' number gets it wrong. How making weight works covers certification and what your state enforces at the scale.
This page was read on 2026-09-03, off IGHSAU's own pages and the NFHS participation survey. Associations change rules in the spring and post the new ones late; the links here go to the page that will carry the change first.
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