High school · New Jersey
New Jersey high school girls' wrestling
NJSIAA has crowned girls' state champions in New Jersey since 2019. 2,822 girls wrestled here in 2025-26, at 78 schools.
By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026
The association
Sanctioned
- Association
- NJSIAA
- Girls' championship
- Yes, first held in 2019
- Format
- Girls' divisions inside the state wrestling championships
- Source
- njsiaa.org, read 2026-09-03
What the record shows
The NJSIAA runs both a girls team tournament and a girls individual tournament, with the individual state championships at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The 2019 winners list is published by the NJSIAA itself.
The 2026-27 New Jersey championship carries the dates, the venue, and the qualifying path.
How many girls wrestle in New Jersey
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 593 more girls than 2024-25, up 26.6 percent.
Weight classes
NJSIAA uses the NFHS 12 class girls' set. The NFHS offers three, and a state association picks one and cannot switch mid-season.
- 100
- 107
- 114
- 120
- 126
- 132
- 138
- 145
- 152
- 165
- 185
- 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 njsiaa.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
NJSIAA publishes a rule for this. A girl at an NJSIAA member school that does not sponsor girls wrestling may enter the state individual tournament as an independent athlete, starting at the district tournament. She must be accompanied by a certified faculty chaperone or an administration approved coach, and the district must certify her six practices and a completed physical.
From njsiaa.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 NJSIAA 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 New Jersey 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 New Jersey 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.
- FelicianNCAA D2
- Centenary (NJ)NCAA D3
- KeanNCAA D3
Wrestlers from New Jersey
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 NJSIAA'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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