History was made in Arlington on Saturday (Dec. 14) when a varsity high-school girls dual wrestling match between two teams was held for the first time in the county.
As part of the multi-team Capital Duals Meet hosted at Wakefield High School, the host Warriors and Washington-Liberty Generals wrestled to a 12-12 tie in a scaled-down girls match.
Each team entered four female wrestlers, with team scoring determined from those individual matches. There were no forfeits in the weight categories that weren’t filled.
Girls wrestling became an official Virginia High School League team sport last season, and is being phased in across the commonwealth.
John Leinberger is the head coach for the Wakefield program, and has been strong in his promotion of girls wrestling. Those teams that have enough female wrestlers can schedule girls dual matches.
The girls match was the only event taking place at the time in the Wakefield gym.
“We thought it was a good opportunity the let everyone watch and let the girls get some attention,” Leinberger said. “We wanted to make it special for them. They got a standing ovation at the end.”
In the Wakefield vs. W-L match, each team won two matches by pins. Winning for Wakefield were Aniya Corbin at 108 pounds and Fabiola Matas-Lopez at 175. For Washington-Liberty Ariana Trejo and Allison Crawford each won at 132.
Vera Fitzke and Fatima Granados also wrestled for Wakefield, as did Makaela Trejo and Mari Parada Rivas for Washington-Liberty.
In boys dual matches at the competition, Wakefield finished 3-2, defeating Riverside, Western Albemarle and Potomac Falls.
Individually for Wakefield, senior captains Owen McGinnis (138 pounds) and Jaden Delgado (285) each finished 5-0. Juniors Zebulun Williams (132) and Abubakr Abdelmutalb (157) and sophomore Anthony Morales (165) were 4-1. Wakefield gave up 24 points in forfeit each match, otherwise might have finished 5-0.
The Yorktown Patriots won the dual championship with a 5-0 record, defeating the Westfield Bulldogs in a close match to clinch first. Westfield finished 3-2. (Find a more detailed story about Yorktown in coming days.)
On Saturday (Dec. 21) at 9 a.m., Wakefield will host the annual Vic Blue Tournament for junior-varsity and female wrestlers.
