Photo Credit: The Open Mat
Catholic high school decided to forfeit an important match at the state high school wrestling championship in Pennsylvania because one of their boys would have to go up against a girl from Saucon Valley High School. This decision lead to Saucon Valley High School's wrestler wining six points for her team and that was enough to tilt the result in her teams favor so Notre Dame – Green Pond lost the match and the chance to win the trophy. Why did the Catholic school decide not to wrestle boy against girl? It is probably because of their beliefs that find it inappropriate, but no one should feel bad about them because wrestling is a sport and there is nothing inappropriate there.
There is nothing unusual about girls competing with boys because there is no separate wrestling division for girls. Since 1994 the number of female high school wrestlers has grown many times but only some states have approved girl wrestling programs with sanctioned state championships. That is why states like Pennsylvania allowed girls to compete in the sport, but this is not the first time that male Christian students avoided wrestling with girls because of their beliefs. A year ago, a Christian student in Colorado gave up two matches because he was scheduled against girls and this cost him the fight for higher placement.
Even though the rule says that girls can compete in wrestling with boys, the Saucon Valley coach felt the need to defend his team. According to Patheos, the coach said that they weren’t “taking advantage” of anyone. If they wanted to do that, they would’ve “thrown 14 girls out there.” Instead, they picked the best possible team to go up against everyone else in the state, and if Catholic schools can’t handle wrestling a girl, it’s their own damn fault.
If boys from Catholic schools decide not to wrestle girls they should just lose the match as the rule says and no one should be sorry for this. On the other hand people should feel sorry for those girls who train hard for the chance to wrestle at the championship and then lose the chance to show what they can on the mat because their opponent refuses to fight with them.
