High school · Illinois
Illinois high school girls' wrestling
IHSA has crowned girls' state champions in Illinois since 2022. 3,396 girls wrestled here in 2025-26, at 378 schools.
By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026
The association
Sanctioned
- Association
- IHSA
- Girls' championship
- Yes, first held in 2022
- Format
- A separate girls' championship, its own event
- Source
- ihsa.org, read 2026-09-03
What the record shows
The first IHSA girls state finals were held February 25 and 26, 2022 at Grossinger Motors Arena in Bloomington. IHSA lists dozens of approved girls wrestling cooperative teams.
The 2026-27 Illinois championship carries the dates, the venue, and the qualifying path.
How many girls wrestle in Illinois
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 718 more girls than 2024-25, up 26.8 percent.
Weight classes
IHSA 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 ihsa.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
IHSA publishes a rule for this. IHSA runs both a boys and a girls wrestling state series. A girl at a school with only a boys team wrestles on that boys team in the regular season, and her school may enter her in either the boys state series, which requires a state Letter of Verification under the IHSA affirmative action policy, or the girls state series, but never both. Two or more member schools may also form an approved cooperative team.
From ihsa.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 IHSA 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 Illinois 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 Illinois wrestler goes from here.
College in the state
10 colleges here sponsor women's wrestling, from the directory built off each school's own athletics staff page.
- McKendreeNCAA D2
- QuincyNCAA D2
- Augustana (IL)NCAA D3
- AuroraNCAA D3
- ElmhurstNCAA D3
- EurekaNCAA D3
- Illinois WesleyanNCAA D3
- MillikinNCAA D3
and 2 more
Wrestlers from Illinois
8 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 IHSA'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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