This is Part 2 ofa two-part series examining girls wrestling, one of the fastest growing sports for high schoolers. In this installment, we check in on California, which is No. 1 among states in girls wrestling participation.
BAKERSFIELD, CA — Danica Torres stepped onto the mat for her quarterfinal match at the 2026 California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Wrestling Championships on Friday. She looked over to the mat next to her, saw her older brother wrestling in his match, and said a quick prayer.
"God, if there's only supposed to be one of us to win, please let it be my brother," Torres, a junior at Brawley Union High School, said. "He works so much harder than me and he deserves it way more than me."
As soon as she won her match to advance to the semifinals, Torres looked back over and began to cry. Her brother, a senior, had lost.
"It shattered me," Torres told USA TODAY Sports.
Forty-seven state high school athletic associations (including Washington, D.C., which has its own association) hold official state championships for girls wrestling. California adds a twist: it holds girls' matches together with the boys' state championships. After becoming just the third state to officially sanction a girls wrestling state championship in 2011, it was a standalone event until six years ago, when the CIF combined both events under one roof.
"It grew and grew," CIF executive director Ron Nocetti told USA TODAY Sports. "It got to the point where we needed to have them in the exact same venue, getting the exact same experience."
In the final round of the tournament, two mats are placed side by side. Two matches are brought out — one girls' and one boys' — and they wrestle simultaneously inside a packed Dignity Health Arena in Bakersfield, which seats approximately 10,000 people.
When the CIF first introduced the new format in 2021, Nocetti says there was some skepticism from parents, schools and athletes, "and then, people saw the wrestling and saw that this is something that needs to be together."
Since then, Nocetti said the feedback has been "nothing but positive."
California not seeing the same lawsuits as other states over girls wrestling
At a time when Title IX legal battles have arisen in other states such as Illinois, Oregon and Tennessee over a lack of access and resources for girls wrestling, Nocetti hasn't really seen the same sentiment in California. Part of the reason for that is the sheer size of the CIF, with over 1,600 member schools and 852,574 student-athletes, per the National Federation of State High School Associations. For reference, the NCAA has approximately1,100 member schoolsand over 550,000 student-athletes combined across all three divisions, according to theirlatest Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report.
"It doesn't mean that that's not happening anywhere," Nocetti said. "I can't tell you it's not happening. I would hope if things like that were happening that going back to the process of raising concerns and letting our schools handle those concerns."
Nocetti added that California has a "mechanism" to lodge complaints directly with schools and school districts. Parents, guardians, students, employees, and district and school advisory committee members can file aUniform Complaint Procedures form— a written and signed statement alleging a violation of federal or state law or regulation, including Title IX — through the California Department of Education. The UCP complaint is then filed directly to the respective district superintendent or their designee.
"I think their goal is to avoid those to begin with," Nocetti said. "And provide the opportunity for girls that want to participate in sport wrestling to be able to do so."
'Girls wrestling has really taken off in California'
The result of those opportunities has been a boom in girls wrestling in California. Out of the 74,064 girls that participated in high school wrestling nationwide in the 2024-25 school year, according to the annual NFHS Sports Participation Survey, California is No. 1 with 8,831 participants.
It's the reason Torres and her family decided to move to the state a year ago in the first place. As a freshman in Arizona, Torres won state and went undefeated through the entire season.
"The competition was a little too easy," she told USA TODAY Sports. "I wanted to get better competitors, and I wanted to beat the best."
And it wasn't just competing against the best from other schools; Torres' teammates at Brawley Union want to be great just as bad as her. Her coaches want it just as much, too. In Arizona, her school's girls wrestling team only consisted of two or three others. Brawley Union has a full lineup, a far cry from when she started out wrestling against boys nine years ago.
Maile Nguyen wanted to start wrestling when she was 6 years old. Her older brother was a wrestler; growing up watching him compete and going to all his tournaments inspired her to pick up the sport as well. The only problem was, there were no girls for her to wrestle. It took two years of wrestling against boys before her family found a coach in her area with a girls wrestling program.
Aubreyelle Baeza was never drawn to any other sport. Or really, any sport.
"I never wanted to do dance or swim, or anything like that," she told USA TODAY Sports. "My mom just threw me into the sport with my brothers, and I just turned out to be good."
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Just 8 years old at the time, Baeza didn't want to wrestle. There was a lot of crying at first, "but I always kept going back."
She just kept going until one day, she beat the whole room, most of which were boys.
Even when Nguyen started at Granada High School in Livermore, she was one of just three girls on the team. Now, in her senior year, Nguyen says there's about eight or nine.
"It's been amazing," Nguyen told USA TODAY Sports. "... It's been super cool to see the family that we've grown not just with our guys team, but also with our women's team."
It speaks to the growth that Torres and Nguyen have seen first-hand when Baeza, now a sophomore at San Dimas High School, says she's pretty sure her school has always had a girls wrestling team.
Where girls wrestling in California can still do better
There's still room for improvement, though. Mainly in the way that women's wrestling is perceived.
Nguyen still hears a lot of people say things along the lines of, "You placed at state,but it's a girls' bracket."
Torres' real first name is Camille. When she was growing up, she would get made fun of for wrestling by people who would find her name on brackets and in news articles.
"Why are you wrestling?" she remembers hearing.
It got to the point where she started going by Danica so that nobody who knew her could look her up.
But the level of support she gets now from her coaches and teammates — both girls and boys — pushes her to another level.
Nguyen feels the same.
"Although we're still growing and still have room to grow, our successes should not be overlooked," she said. "These are still amazing things that we're achieving."
'We're not to be overlooked'
The energy inside Dignity Health Arena for the final round is palpable. Following an Olympics-style parade of champions, the lights go dark. A lone spotlight illuminates the two mats. There are no divisions at the state level in California; it's one bracket, one tournament in which the boys' and girls' finalists duel it out side by side until there's one champion in each weight class.
"It just adds to the atmosphere," Nguyen said. "It's really great because having not that big of a girls team, it helps when you get to be with your guys team because we're all here supporting each other no matter what."
It's one of the things that Torres especially likes about competing in California.
"Some states want to make it two, three divisions," she said. "I don't think that's that good because it dilutes the competition. … I'd rather just have one division so I could say I was the best."
Boys and girls sharing the floor also sends a message of equity that has resonated with the athletes.
"Before then, it was always just one girl in the whole boy room," Baeza said. "... It just proves that girls can do stuff that boys can do. Even if it's really tough."
"We're not to be overlooked," Nguyen said. "Being able to wrestle on the same stage in the same arena, it just shows that we're here to win the same thing. We're here to achieve the same goals, and so why not do it together?"
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:How does Title IX work: California sets the standard in wrestling
