Takedown Report

Binghamton Duo paving way for women’s wrestling

Normally, happenings at Presbyterian College in South Carolina and King College in Tennessee wouldn’t warrant attention in these parts.  But as women’s wrestling continues to gain traction at the college level, a duo with local ties enjoys a front-row seat.  Binghamton North graduate Mark Cody took a job in December as Director of Wrestling at Presbyterian College, the lone school in the nation to offer Division I wrestling for women.
Maine-Endwell graduate Cheyenne Sisenstein will wrestle for King College this winter after spending a year at Wyoming Seminary, a prep school in Pennsylvania.  They’re on the ground floor for a sport that has seen eye-opening growth in recent years.
In New York, girls started showing up on high school mats and wrestling boys about two decades back. In those days, it was something of an oddity.
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It’s become much more mainstream.
Cody said 15,000 girls wrestle at the high school and club level in the United States. Twelve states offer girls high school state championships, up six from last year and 50 colleges have women’s wrestling programs.
Chenango Forks coach Rick Gumble said of the 140 wrestlers New York sent to the Marine Corps Cadet and Junior National Championships in Fargo, North Dakota, last month, 40 were girls.  The year before, Sisenstein earned All-America honors at the same tournament.
“Now that women’s wrestling is getting larger, I do believe a greater number of naturally-gifted females will take up opportunities to wrestle,” said Sisenstein, who nearly placed in the Section 4 Division II tournament as a senior in 2017. “I think it took some guinea pigs to get it rolling, but over the years we have had a tremendous amount of great athletes. … It really is a blessing to be able to watch this sport grow first hand.”
Cody, former men’s head coach at Oklahoma and American, said though Presbyterian is the first D-I to offer women’s wrestling, he expects others to follow suit. Oklahoma State and Iowa are among schools considering adding women’s wrestling, he said.
Rest of the story at https://www.pressconnects.com/story/sports/high-school/2018/08/25/womens-wrestling-gaining-traction-u-s/1093886002/?mc_cid=37026a08ed&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

October 14, 2018 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized