Female wrestler wins second straight state championship against boys just days after winning girls' state title

A female high school senior won her second straight state wrestling title, defeating multiple opponents on her way to the Maine championship.

Maddie Ripley, a 17-year-old from Oceanside High School in Rockland, Maine, beat three opponents en route to another state wrestling championship against male competitors.

The feat was even more impressive when considering that she won the inaugural women's title just days earlier at a different weight class. Ripley won the 107-pound girl's state championship, then, just days later, defeated males in their 113-pound division.

"I didn’t really hear too much that it was a fluke. Now that I’ve won a second, then it just proves that it wasn’t," Ripley said confidently, according to ABC News.

"Girls are working hard," Ripley continued. "Last year when I won I was like really excited. It was the first time I won. And then this year, I was still super excited."

Ripley's coach and stepfather said that more and more colleges are starting up female wrestling programs, and the sport is in a time of a lot of talented female athletes.

"I think girls' wrestling is just exploding right now," he said. "The more athletes we get, the better they’re going to do."

Ripley is not the only female wrestler to take on males in a time when male athletes are often invading female athletics.

An Arizona high school senior named Audrey Jimenez won the Division I state wrestling title against boys just days earlier.

"Why not?" Jimenez said about her decision to first wrestle boys. The 18-year-old actually needed special permission from the state athletic body to compete against males and capitalized on the decision.

In 2022, Bella Mir, daughter of UFC legend Frank Mir, was among a group of Nevada teenage girls who started competing in wrestling matches against males. Mir, along with Jenavi Alejandro and Juliana Alejandro, wrestled males, with Alejandro becoming the first girl to win a match against a boy at the state level in 2019.

Mir expressed sympathy for the boys and said they are in a lose-lose situation.

"I feel bad for the boys. If you win, you look bad because you beat up on a girl. But if you lose, it sucks because you got beat by a girl," she explained.

Mir is now a professional mixed martial arts fighter and was even signed to a representation deal with the UFC while in college for her name, image, and likeness.

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