Teammates cheer on sophomore Lillian Chaney ahead of her match Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, at Upper St. Clair.
Story and photos by
KRISTINA SERAFINI
TribLive
March 11, 2024
Avalin Barry sat in the black and gold bleachers of North Allegheny High School’s gymnasium, her Sasquatch-patterned sweatpants tucked into a gray medical boot on her right leg and a brown cowboy boot on the left.
The Norwin freshman and first-year wrestler wasn’t able to compete in the first WPIAL girls wrestling championship last month. She suffered a season-ending injury — a broken fibula, torn ligaments and a high ankle sprain — while wrestling with sophomore Josephine “Jojo” Dollman during a practice the week prior. She wore a shirt that read “Compliments of Jojo.”
“I didn’t know anything like this before. That’s why I’m here — to support these girls, even though I can’t wrestle,” she said. “This pretty much means everything to me now.”
Barry watched her team make history that day.
Dollman was the first Norwin girls wrestler to earn a gold medal in the inaugural event.
She’d be in the books as the first girl to win WPIAL gold in her 142-pound weight class in this first girls wrestling season sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.
Flanked by athletes from Peters Township and Butler, Dollman cried as she bent down from atop the winner’s podium to receive her medal from her dad and coach, Mike Dollman.
“I was so in my head before that last match, and he came up to me and was like, ‘No matter what, I’m proud of you,’” she said. “So for me to get that pin in the first period, and for him to hang that medal around my neck, it was just so amazing and I don’t think anything will ever top that feeling.”
Dollman wasn’t the only Norwin wrestler celebrating.
Freshman Octavia Walker had a difficult start in her 170-pound championship bout against Audrey Calgaro. But she bounced back from a 5-0 deficit to pin the Canon-McMillan sophomore before leaping into the arms of her dad and coach, Rob Walker.
The Knights earned four other medals at WPIALs: junior Abby Hewitt’s third-place win (190 pounds), freshman Karsyn Champion’s fourth place (148), sophomore Addison Elyes’ fifth place (112) and junior Keiarra “Kei” Leonard’s eighth place (235).
Of those six, all but Leonard qualified for the PIAA girls west regionals on March 2, where Dollman and Champion’s first-place finishes, along with Walker’s second place and Hewitt’s third, earned them each a trip to Hershey for the state championship. Dollman was the only Norwin girls wrestler to place at the state event. She ended in fifth.
The season was a huge success for this team of 10. Most of the girls never had wrestled before. A few never had been involved in organized sports.
Nick Semon, one of Norwin’s coaches, said the team has progressed tremendously over the last few months.
“I think their confidence, their overall mental toughness, their discipline, their commitment to excellence has all improved over the season, along with their technique,” he said.
“Girls wrestling is a great add-on to the community. I see a lot of support from the parents. I see a lot of support from girls in general and how inspiring it is to the younger generation, especially our middle school girls coming up to the high school.”
Brooke Zumas is the chair of SanctionPA, a nonprofit organization that spearheaded efforts to get girls wrestling sanctioned in Pennsylvania. Among its benefits, she said, wrestling helps boost self-confidence, grit, perseverance and the ability to overcome obstacles. It also helps improve body image, she said, by showing that people of all shapes and sizes are needed and valued.
“No matter what you weigh, we have a place for you in this sport,” Zumas said.
In March 2020, SanctionPA kicked off its campaign to meet the PIAA’s 100-school threshold to consider a sanction. They met that goal in February 2023, and the PIAA unanimously voted on the sanction last May, making this its first winter season. Pennsylvania was the 38th state to sanction the sport. Now, 183 schools across the commonwealth have sponsored teams.
Zumas said the interest has been amazing. The number of girls participating in the sport has nearly doubled each year since 2020. There were 305 girls wrestling in the state during the 2020-21 school year. That number has swelled to 1,934 this year.
News of the sanction sparked sophomore Camden Reese’s interest in joining Norwin’s team.
“I was really scared, but once you start wrestling, you just focus so much on that and you just forget everything else around you,” she said.
Others were recruited to the team by classmates.
“I was in the same gym class as Jojo, and she kind of walked up to me and was like, ‘Do you want to see a video of me throwing a girl?’ And I was like, ‘OK.’ And then I just started going to practices,” sophomore Lillian Chaney said. “It was super fun, so I stuck with it.”
Sophomore Giana Ruble was persuaded to join to fill a spot needed for the 118-pound weight class. “I would’ve never wrestled boys,” she said.
Leonard said her lacrosse teammates, Reese and Hewitt, nagged her to join. “I gave in … and I fell in love,” she said.
Though intimidating on the mat, the Norwin girls are anything but that behind the scenes. There’s lots of support and camaraderie among the group. Lots of hugs and “I love you’s.” And a ton of hair-braiding.
The girls described the team as a family, despite many of them only knowing each other for a short time.
“They’re my best friends,” Walker said. “I didn’t even know half of these girls before the season, and now our bond with each other is so tight and it’s so special. I don’t think there’s anything else I would ask for.”
Before a Valentine’s Day match at Upper St. Clair last month, one of the girls brought in pink, red and white-striped goodie bags to pass around for some holiday cheer. Sparkly pink iced sugar cookies were a supplement to the usual post-weigh-in scarf fest, and heart-shaped headbands adorned the heads of teammates as they gathered for their pre-match prayer.
“This team means everything to me. I’ve been on other sports teams, and it just hasn’t clicked with the girls, but these ones will be cheering for me if I’m getting my head shoved in the mat, or if I’m the one shoving someone else’s head in the mat,” Chaney said.
Champion agreed.
“We spend so much time together. We’ve all seen each other bleed, cry, everything. Everyone’s downfalls, we’ve all seen. It’s a really great connection to have with someone, knowing that they have your side. It means a lot,” she said.
Hewitt, another first-year wrestler, said she was impressed by how well the season has gone.
“It’s the first year for a girls team, and all of the girls are getting really good this year. A lot of our first-year girls are doing really good. Everyone’s trying really hard this year,” she said.
Of the 10 girls on the team, three have prior wrestling experience. Walker and Elyes wrestled last year with the boys.
“I feel like I have so much more experience now. I’m definitely getting stronger throughout the year,” Elyes said.
Last year she said she had to compete in outside tournaments to gain more experience since she didn’t have too many matches.
“(The boys) are a lot stronger, definitely, but I feel like more technique comes in with the girls,” she said.
Dollman is the team’s veteran, having been in the sport for eight years. She exclusively wrestled on the boys team during her first year. In the years that followed, she wrestled boys all season until it came time for states, where she would face female athletes. She repeated that until last year, when she had girls competitions in-season for the first time. Wrestling on the boys team had been a challenge for her. She said she faced a lot of bullying.
“So for me to have girls that I can relate to that consistently put in effort and consistently show up, it means that I have my own family now and it’s not just me and one other girl or me and a couple girls that are the team managers,” she said. “These girls know what I go through on a day-to-day basis.”
Dollman said the sanctioned sport proves that girls deserve to be in the wrestling space just as much as the boys, though she’s known that all along.
“Just because we’re now having our own season doesn’t mean we haven’t been here before,” Dollman said. “We’ve been here for a long time.”
Kristina Serafini is a TribLive photojournalist covering Southwestern Pennsylvania. She is a Pittsburgh native and Point Park graduate. Her work has been honored locally and nationally. She can be reached at kserafini@triblive.com.