They got next: Pirates expect to contend at FHSAA's first girls wrestling championships

Three years ago, when coach John White started a dedicated girls wrestling team at Matanzas High School, he had eight girls on the squad.

Last year, that number grew to 12. This season, the first year that girls wrestling is sanctioned by the Florida High School Athletic Association, White has 23 wrestlers on his team.

White had led the Pirates' wrestling program for 14 years, back when there were no high school girls wrestling teams. The girls who joined his program back then wrestled with and against the boys.

He said he wanted to start a girls program, and the administration was all in. T.J. Gillin took over the boys team, and White became a full-time girls wrestling coach."

The past two years, he took his wrestlers to non-sanctioned tournaments on the weekends, and they competed in the independent state championship at Orlando Dr. Phillips High School. 

Meanwhile, he worked behind the scenes to get the FHSAA to adopt girls wrestling as an official sport. He was a member of the advisory committee that finally, after some fits and starts, convinced the organization's board of directors to sanction the sport.

"The way we got it passed was to make it another division within boys wrestling," White said. "We follow all the same rules. It worked to have some tournaments together. It was our way of getting it passed a lot quicker."

"Orlando has always been a hotbed for girls wrestling. The outlying areas are growing rapidly."

JOHN WHITE, Matanzas girls wrestling coach

The girls state tournament will run concurrently with the boys individual bracket tournament March 3-5 at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee. It will likely take some time before there is a girls duals season as neophyte programs catch up with Matanzas and other established teams.

"Almost all of the Orlando high schools have full teams," White said. "Orlando has always been a hotbed for girls wrestling. The outlying areas are growing rapidly."

For a while, the rich, like Matanzas, will get richer, as girls who want to wrestle will flock to schools that have a dedicated coach and enough girls where they don't have to wrestle against boys in practice.

As a result, most of the wrestlers on the Matanzas girls team are freshmen.

"My girls won't wrestle against boys now," White said. "There's no reason for it."

But the boys and girls do share the same weight room.

"The room's a little tighter, but we make it work," White said. "I couldn't do it without support from the boys coach. Both teams support each other. We're one team."

"We have almost 60 athletes on a 40 by 40 mat. The space gets tight. Both teams train the same, and both teams are having a lot of success."

T.J. GILLIN, Matanzas boys wrestling coach

"We have almost 60 athletes on a 40 by 40 mat," Gillin said. "The space gets tight. Both teams train the same, and both teams are having a lot of success."

The Pirates finished third in both of the tournaments they've competed in so far this season. They were third out of 30 teams at the season-opening Titan Clash at Orange City University, and they were third behind South Dade and Orlando Freedom at the Ponte Vedra Girls IBT on Dec. 11.

"We should be one of the top five teams (at state), along with Freedom, Dr. Phillips and South Dade," White said.

The Pirates had two weight-class winners at Ponte Vedra: Mariah Mills at 105 pounds and Tesla Kirkland at 115. Christina Borgmann (120) and Gabby Proctor (190) placed third. Marissa Roberts (130) and Saiomy Cabrera (135) placed fifth.

Some of the team's top wrestlers, including Isabella Tietje and Tiana Fries, have been injured.

"Once we get the other girls in the lineup and keep working hard, we'll make a run for a state title," White said.

Whoever wins that title this season will be etched in the FHSAA record book for eternity as the first girls wrestling team to win an official state championship.