For the first time since the 2019-20 season, non-male wrestlers are competing for GDS. The team currently has two female members, Tristan Fulton ‘26 and Sophie Gresens ‘26. Gresens is a writer for the Bit. Fulton and Gresens are the first females on the team since the sport returned post-pandemic. Regardless of gender make-up, the team still competes in the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAC).
This development is a result of a concerted effort by the team, led by head coach Grayson Shepperd, to encourage non-male wrestlers to join the team. High school English teacher Aisha Sidibé joined the coaching staff, having expressed her interest after hearing the team’s plans to get non-males to join. The team also put up USA Wrestling-provided posters around the school to raise awareness for the team by highlighting nationwide successes in women’s wrestling. Additionally, Sidibé sent emails out to the school advertising the team and specifically noting the opportunity for non-male wrestlers to join.
According to one of these emails, this is the first time that non-male wrestlers will have the option to wrestle against other non-male players for the entire season. The decision whether to wrestle male competitors has been left up to the non-male wrestlers themselves based on their comfort level. While not every team that GDS competes against has female wrestlers on the roster, the team has supplemented its schedule with events geared towards women. “We’d like to give the wrestlers the flexibility to decide what works best for them, while also hopefully doing what would help the team,” Athletic Director David Gillespie explained.
“I think that when you start using your body and wrestling, you find out very quickly that you don’t care who you go against,” Sidibé said.
The team practices together, with divisions in training based on experience rather than gender, and newer wrestlers receive extra attention and help with the basics. Fulton, who had never wrestled before this year, has enjoyed her time on the team, saying, “At first it was so exhausting, but I feel like once I got into it and got into the rhythm of it, it just felt so good because I was able to challenge myself.” Fulton has chosen not to wrestle boys so far but has found the co-ed practices welcoming and helpful in pushing herself.
The team wanted to increase the female presence on the team because other schools have women’s wrestling teams. The team also had a need to fill more weight classes. Wrestling is divided by weight, with fourteen total weight classes. If a school does not have a wrestler of a specific weight, they must forfeit that class, losing points for the team that can occasionally make the difference between a win and a loss.
Women’s wrestling at GDS has been successful in the past, with Julia Ernst ’14 making a name for herself during her time as one of very few girls on the team. She overlapped with Sarah Loether ’11 during her freshman year. The subject of both a CNN video and a Washington Post article, Ernst became GDS’ wrestler with the most wins in her senior season. Though Ernst primarily wrestled men during her time on the team, things have since changed.
Women’s wrestling is among the fastest-growing sports in the United States. According to FloWrestling, since the debut of NCAA Division I women’s wrestling there has been a 46% increase in female participation in the past year. It has also greatly expanded in the DMV over the past few years, despite the decline in non-male participation at GDS. “It’s kind of funny that it was always kind of our thing in the past, and now, suddenly, we’re somehow lagging behind,” Shepperd said.
The wrestling team has excelled in the past two years, winning two consecutive MAC championships, as well as coming in second in the DC State Athletic Association tournament last year. As the team expands and diversifies, it hopes to continue this success. Shepperd is excited about what this new team could do, as well as what it means for women’s sports at the school. “I think wrestling is kind of catching up with the rest of the world,” he said.