High school · South Dakota
South Dakota high school girls' wrestling
SDHSAA has crowned girls' state champions in South Dakota since 2021. 974 girls wrestled here in 2025-26, at 87 schools.
By Joe Spisak, Pennsylvania state champion and 4x NCAA qualifier at Virginia · Published September 3, 2026
The association
Sanctioned
- Association
- SDHSAA
- Girls' championship
- Yes, first held in 2021
- Format
- Girls' divisions inside the state wrestling championships
- Source
- mitchellrepublic.com, read 2026-09-03
What the record shows
The first SDHSAA girls state tournament was held in Rapid City in February 2021 with 88 entrants alongside 448 boys. South Dakota moved to the NFHS 14 class girls set for 2026-27; its own handbook marks the list new for 2026, superseding the 13 class list topping out at 250 that third parties still carry.
The 2026-27 South Dakota championship carries the dates, the venue, and the qualifying path.
How many girls wrestle in South Dakota
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 498 more girls than 2024-25, up 104.6 percent.
Weight classes
SDHSAA 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 sdhsaa.com 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
SDHSAA publishes a rule for this. The SDHSAA has no provision for a girl to wrestle for another school's team, and since 2025 girls may not enter the boys individual or dual events. A school with a demonstrated shortage of facilities, coaching staff or numbers may form a practice cooperative with another member school for up to five wrestlers from the satellite school, but the requesting school still competes as its own entity.
From sdhsaa.com, 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 SDHSAA 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 South Dakota 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 South Dakota 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.
- Sioux FallsNCAA D2
- Dakota Wesleyan UniversityNAIA
Wrestlers from South Dakota
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 SDHSAA'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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