As the world of athletics evolve with the times, the sport of high school wrestling has also begun to change. IN the early 1990s the wrestling clubs in high school across the country started to include females in their rosters with a few as 100 girls those first few years. That number has steadily risen over the past decades until girls wrestling became its own sanctioned sport with OHSAA in Ohio in 2022 (along with boys volleyball). In Paulding County, girls wrestling has had a good following and participation and Wayne Trace has its first girls wrestling team beginning with the 2024-25 season.
With a team comes the need for a coach, and it’s time to introduce the first high school girls wrestling coach at Wayne Trace High School, Ashley Collins. Collins was approached by long time Wayne Trace wrestling coach, George Clemens. Collins stated that Clemens knew that she wrestled back in her day and was already helping coach with the Club, so when he asked her, she was intimidated and nervous at first, but then decided that she wanted to help more to be an advocate for female wrestling, so she said yes to this opportunity. “I want to give these girls the opportunity that I didn’t have when I was their age,” commented Collins.
Ashley has a long history with sports as her father was a wrestling coach, she was a wrestler and her brother, Ruger Goetzenleuchter also wrestled in high school. Collins is also the physical education and art teacher at Divine Mercy School in Payne. She is married to Nick and they have two children.
Collins will coach both the junior high and high school teams. She has several years experience as she was coach for the Wayne Trace Wrestling Club which teaches athletes in elementary ages the disciplines of wrestling. Her brother, Ruger, will be Collins’ assistant coach. She is currently going through some training courses to be up to date on the rules and regulations at this fairly new division of high school sports.
For this first season of girls wrestling, Collins will be coaching eight high schoolers, and six junior high athletes. There are several other schools who will also have girls teams this year – including some GMC schools. Conditioning starts October 21st and first official practice for the girls will be the beginning of November. The girls’ team will share practice space with the boys’ team.
Collins is looking forward to what this first season of girls wrestling will hold. “It’s definitely going to be a rookie season. We had 14 girls sign up, but we know we may not end up with all of them. It’s a grueling sport. My main goal is to help girls grow as athletes, and do their best. We have a couple who have been in Club for a while and some fresh faces. I really have high hopes for something new for female athletes in the area.”
Girls wrestling is expected to expand and grow with each passing year, adding wrestlings and teams from all other not only the state but nationwide. Girls wrestling is the fastest growing sport in the country right now.
