Rec Sports
Girls across Michigan are grappling with wrestling as numbers surge
Dec. 17, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET
Cameron Maldonado didn’t know what to expect when a friend invited her to a girls wrestling tournament in 2023.
She sat in the student section in awe, watching her friend Adeline Tuccini – then a junior at Allen Park – compete. Maldonado knew then: She wanted to join the team.
“It’s a space I’ve never seen women in,” Maldanado, 17, of Romulus, said. “There’s not a lot of places that girls can be the ones in control. They’re the ones making the choices. They’re the ones that are getting sweaty and violent.