High school · Maryland
Maryland high school girls' wrestling
MPSSAA has crowned girls' state champions in Maryland since 2020. 1,423 girls wrestled here in 2025-26, at 162 schools.
By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026
The association
Sanctioned
- Association
- MPSSAA
- Girls' championship
- Yes, first held in 2020
- Format
- Girls' divisions inside the state wrestling championships
- Source
- mpssaa.org, read 2026-09-03
What the record shows
Maryland runs a girls division inside the regular championship structure rather than a wholly separate event: a girls division at each of the eight region meets feeding one classification bracket, and a female wrestler chooses the girls division or her classification division. The MPSSAA record book notes the 2021 season was cancelled.
The 2026-27 Maryland championship carries the dates, the venue, and the qualifying path.
How many girls wrestle in Maryland
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 347 more girls than 2024-25, up 32.2 percent.
Weight classes
MPSSAA 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 mpssaa.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
MPSSAA publishes a rule for this. The MPSSAA publishes no wrestling cooperative team or unattached entry rule. What it does publish is the state equal opportunity regulation in its handbook: where a school sponsors a team for one sex and none for the other, the excluded sex must be allowed to try out for the existing team, which is how girls at schools with no girls team wrestle in Maryland.
From mpssaa.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 MPSSAA 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 Maryland 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 Maryland wrestler goes from here.
College in the state
2 colleges here sponsor women's wrestling, from the directory built off each school's own athletics staff page.
- Frostburg StateNCAA D2
- McDanielNCAA D3
Wrestlers from Maryland
One woman 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 MPSSAA'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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