It was mission accomplished for coach Chris Ward and the young ladies of the Valkyrie Wrestling Club on Saturday inside the ELITE Sports Center in Parkersburg.
The Benwood-based all-girls wrestling club saw 10 of its wrestlers place at the West Virginia Girls Junior State Championship.
Among that total was state champion Laylah Yoho, who captured the 80-pound championship in the 10-12-year-old division. For her efforts, Yoho was also named the Most Outstanding Wrestler for the entire tournament.
She was not the only one experiencing success. Valkyrie produced four runner-ups in Georgia Beegle, Gracie Logsdon, Emmalyn Beegle, and Sydney fields; four third-place finishers in Payton Yoho, Annzly Leasure, Skylar Pyles, and Sadie Hillberry, along with fourth-place finisher Joslyn Fields.
“We set the goal to be the state champs early in our season and that’s been our main goal all along was to get to state’s and come home with a title,” Ward admitted.
It was the second year for the junior girls’ championships, but the fourth for the event overall as it was held in conjunction with the girls’ high school and middle school championships. The high school event was the fourth annual.
Last year, Valkyrie traveled to Parkersburg and returned home after finishing third behind South Parkersburg and the Bulldawgs wrestling club. Laylah Yoho, Leasure, and Logsdon were all champions in 2022, but the club had only five placers.
So returning to Wood County and coming home with team hardware was a major win for both Ward and his wrestlers.
But it’s more than just about team championships for Ward. He and his girls are on the ground floor, helping spread interest in the sport both locally and beyond.
While girls’ wrestling is one of the fastest-growing sports nationally, Ohio and Pennsylvania categorize it as an emerging sport, with Ohio coming on board in January of 2022. Later this year, the OHSAA will host its first official girls’ state wrestling championships. Participation in Pennsylvania has grown enough that it’s nearing full sanctioning status with the PIAA.
West Virginia isn’t there yet, but the pressure to sanction is mounting, as is interest in the sport.
“Every year it has grown, and this was the fourth year for the high school tournament,” Ward said. “The first year they had very small numbers, but the second year they added the middle school (tournament), and the third year, the youth.
“It’s grown in all three aspects. The SSAC has a pretty high number for what it wants in order to sanction the sport, but from what I understand, it’s getting a lot of pressure to get it sanctioned from a lot of areas.”
Local Participation
Ward and the late Joe Giovengo began Valkyrie back in 2020. They purchased the former Benwood Fire Hall and turned it into a training facility for both Valkyrie and the Bruisers’ wrestling club, which Giovengo’s father Tom Sr. first started back in 1979.
With Ward and Joe Giovengo at the helm, they decided it was finally time to start an all-girls club and try to build the support, and training options, locally for interested girls.
“That first year, we probably had three or four girls but the numbers weren’t really there,” Ward recalled. “It was hit or miss, but we did have a few that were really dedicated, and Laylah was one of them.
“Then COVID hit and a lot of people didn’t come back.”
Knowing Yoho’s natural talent, Ward convinced her family to bring her back once wrestling began again and Yoho experienced success. Her success helped garner interest and, as Year 2 for the club rolled around, more started following her into the gym.
The word was getting around and wrestling parents with daughters at other locations started flocking to the all-girls club.
“We’d have parents come in where their daughters were on other teams, but they didn’t feel they were really getting the teaching or coaching that they felt the boys were getting,” Ward said. “They were kind of getting pushed to the side. They wanted to go somewhere where it was all girls, and our numbers started to build off that.”
Ward runs the Ohio Valley Youth Wrestling League, which is a novice league that area schools compete in from both sides of the river. Last year, Ward advertised a novice all-girls team that brought in around 10-15 girls for the Novice season.
This year, around 22 girls signed up for the Novice team, and Ward noted he has about 17-18 that are consistently wrestling and competing each week.
“Our numbers have been growing steadily every year.”
That’s sure to continue with events like the Battle for the Belt the Valkyrie Wrestling Club put on for the first back in January.
The Battle took place that Highlands Sports Complex
How was the participation in the first-year event? Ward admitted he was hoping for a good turnout but was elated that 120-125 girls from 6-7 different states sign up and travel to Ohio County to compete.
Ward noted he chose the Highlands’ facility because of its track record in hosting first-rate events and he wanted to put on a good impression not only for the local competitors but also for the out-of-towners coming in.
“We had girls from Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee, all over,” Ward said. “We gave out full-sized pink championship belts to the winners and we just had a great turnout.
“We’re definitely going to hold it again and possibly add a middle school girls division to the tournament. We had a lot of middle school girls contact us about adding that division, and with the turnout we had, we probably will. We’re going to continue to do it in the future.”
Drawing Interest
Ward has a lot of talented, growing athletes wrestling at his practices each week. Given their age, many are still competing in multiple sports, trying to find the ones they like best and see where they can excel.
He does a few year-rounders that are dedicated to wrestling like Yoho, but for the most part, his wrestlers also compete in soccer and softball.
“Layla is a full-time wrestler, but a lot of them play softball as well. That seems to be the biggest,” Ward said. “We kind of take a break once the state (youth) tournament hits in March, but then they start filtering back in.
“But I think a lot of the draw to (girls’) wrestling, is the same with baseball, softball, soccer, is the amount of playing time. The parents and girls know when they come to wrestling, there is all the playing time you want. We’re at a tournament nearly every week.”
Ward said in some of the other sports, he’s seen kids get pushed out of their sports because of travel ball, and they are looking to find something new.
“These kids are athletic and they want to be involved and here, you can get all the playing time you want.”
Wrestling is one of those sports with participants’ families are either extremely knowledgeable, and have been a wrestling family for generations, or they are new to the sport. There’s not a lot of in-between with part-time fans on the periphery.
That being said, Valkyrie receives a lot of fresh faces that are basically blank slates now, coming into the gym with little to no knowledge of the sport, its rules, and techniques.
A lot of the wrestling families with girls in the area have already gravitated toward the club, so now, it’s the newbies who are making their way to the sport for the first time.
“If a girl shows up and she doesn’t know anything, we can teach them what we know and what we want them to know,” Ward said. “It’s a blank slate and they have no bad habits. I think we have kind of soaked up all the ones that may have been wrestling elsewhere but wanted to be a part of an all-girls team.”
As interest grows, so will opportunities, and there’s no time like the present to get involved, though Ward noted the best time to get involved for the first time is early fall. But they are always welcome, no matter the experience level.
“We wrestle year round and it doesn’t matter, any girl from five years and up, they don’t need any experience, they can come out and try it, ask as many questions as they want, watch practice, and find out if this is for them,” Ward said. “Our club is open to anybody. They can come in and train and compete.
“Our next big signup is in September and that’s for our novice team and league. That’s the prime time for a brand-new wrestler to start.”
Anyone looking for more information can find Valkyrie on Facebook.
