Indiana high school girls' wrestling

IHSAA (Indiana) has crowned girls' state champions in Indiana since 2025. 2,719 girls wrestled here in 2025-26, at 258 schools.

By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026

The association

Sanctioned

Association: IHSAA (Indiana)
Girls' championship: Yes, first held in 2025
Format: A separate girls' championship, its own event
Source: ihsaa.org, read 2026-09-03

What the record shows

The IHSAA board approved full recognition in 2024 but the first IHSAA tournament ran in the 2024-25 school year, wrestled in January 2025. The records book states that from 2017 to 2024 the Indiana High School Girls Wrestling Coaches Association ran its own unsanctioned state tournament, so those champions are not IHSAA titles. Weight classes re-read 2026-09-22: no 2026-27 document naming the girls classes found on https://www.ihsaa.org/sports/girls/wrestling as of 2026-09-22; the page carries 2026-27 dates but no manual, and tournament manuals sit behind the school portal. The 2026-27 By-Laws, read 2026-09-20, print no wrestling weight classes. The records book shows the January 2026 finals wrestled in all 14 NFHS girls classes.

The 2026-27 Indiana championship carries the dates, the venue, and the qualifying path.

How many girls wrestle in Indiana

The NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, girls' wrestling column. Every number here is the survey's own; nothing is estimated or carried forward.

Season	Girls	Schools
2025-26	2,719	258
2024-25	2,224	241

That is 495 more girls than 2024-25, up 22.3 percent.

Weight classes

IHSAA (Indiana) uses the NFHS 14 class girls' set. The NFHS offers three, and a state association picks one and cannot switch mid-season. That is the 2025-26 set. As of 2026-09-22 IHSAA (Indiana) had not posted its 2026-27 classes; states re-pick among the three sets each year, so the season bulletin your coach has is the final word until it does.

Scratch weights, in pounds. The NFHS book lets 2 pounds be added to each class after certification as a growth allowance (4-4-4), and the IHSAA (Indiana) decides whether and when it applies, so a bracket later in the season may read 2 pounds higher than this. Read off ihsaa.org on 2026-09-22. The weight classes page puts this beside the NCAA, NAIA and international weights.

Growth allowance

The NFHS book says a growth allowance of 2 pounds "may be added to each weight class any time after the date of certification" (4-4-4). The IHSAA (Indiana) decides whether and when it applies.

The IHSAA (Indiana) sets when it applies; see its rules at ihsaa.org, or ask your coach for the season bulletin.

Consecutive-day allowance

On consecutive days of team competition, the NFHS book grants every wrestler 1 pound a day, up to 2 pounds, when the opponent has been given at least 48 hours' notice (4-5-5). The IHSAA (Indiana) decides whether and when it applies and can add conditions of its own; what its documents say is below.

We have not yet read the IHSAA (Indiana) weigh-in rules. Ask your coach for the season bulletin.

If she weighs in above her plan

We have not yet read the IHSAA (Indiana) weigh-in rules. Ask your coach for the season bulletin.

What to do if your school has no girls' team

IHSAA (Indiana) publishes a rule for this. IHSAA treats boys wrestling and girls wrestling as two separate single gender sports and a female student may not wrestle in a boys program. Indiana also does not permit schools to combine into one team, so a girl whose school does not sponsor girls wrestling has no IHSAA published path to a team at another school.

From ihsaa.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 IHSAA (Indiana) 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 Indiana 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 Indiana wrestler goes from here.

College in the state

3 colleges here sponsor women's wrestling, from the directory built off each school's own athletics staff page.

ManchesterNCAA D3
TrineNCAA D3
Indiana TechNAIA

Every program in Indiana

Wrestlers from Indiana

4 women in the record we keep grew up here. Their careers started in a room like the one down the road.

The Indiana wrestlers

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, and when wrestling season starts has the year month by month and the first practice dates we have read off the associations' own pages.

This page was read on 2026-09-03, off IHSAA (Indiana)'s own pages and the NFHS participation survey, and parts of it were re-read since, most recently on 2026-09-22. 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.

Cite this data

Checked 2026-09-22

Women's Wrestling Club, "Indiana girls HS wrestling", https://womenswrestlingclub.com/high-school/in, checked 2026-09-22.

Linking to it? The HTML:

<a href="https://womenswrestlingclub.com/high-school/in">Indiana girls HS wrestling</a>

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