BUTLER TWP — After months of deliberation, the Butler Area School District is adding high school girls wrestling to its athletic program.

On Monday, the school board authorized the hiring process to begin for a head coach for the new program, athletic director Bill Mylan said.

“We’re going to post the position in-house and outside,” Mylan said. “We’ll take applications over the next couple of weeks, then begin the interview process. The plan is to hire the coach sometime in October.”

A survey was recently sent out to parents in the school district to gauge interest in a girls wrestling program. Mylan said approximately 60 people responded.

The Golden Tornado girls wrestling team will debut during the 2023-24 wrestling season. Practices will be held simultaneously with the boys team in the wrestling room on campus.

Butler had two girls — Ana Malovich and Kaitlynn Plopi — on its high school boys team last season. Another three girls were wrestling on the junior high team and six more were in the elementary program.

“It will be interesting to see what the roster size is,” Butler boys wrestling coach Scott Stoner said of the girls team. “I’m sure we will adjust things as we go. I’m glad the girls are getting their chance to experience the sport through having their own team.

“Ana has decided to wrestle for the girls team. It’s fitting she gets the opportunity to wrestle on Butler’s first girls team after the years of dedication she put in with the boys program.”

Malovich, as senior, won more than 50 matches as a starter on the Tornado boys wrestling team.

“We’ve been talking about starting a girls team, for some time now and had been exploring the possibilities,” Stoner said. “When the PIAA made girls wrestling a sanctioned sport in the state and gave the girls their own state championship tournament, it became a no-brainer.”

Mylan pointed out that “girls wrestling is the fastest growing high school sport in the country,” according to the National Federation of High Schools.

There are 475 high school boys and 111 girls wrestling teams in Pennsylvania. SanctionPa reports that girls wrestling participation in the state has increased by 200% in recent years.

In 2022-23, more than 500 girls wrestled for junior high teams in Pa, while more than 1,000 wrestled for high school teams. There are 115 colleges nationwide that offer women’s wrestling, nine of those schools being Pennsylvania institutions.

“Our first girls wrestling schedule will be tournament-oriented,” Mylan said. “The dual matches we do get, we’ll try to schedule as doubleheaders with the boys match that night.

“I’ve already talked to Heather Lewis (Seneca Valley athletic director) and we’ll definitely have a girls-boys doubleheader when we wrestle them this season.”

Stoner brought up the idea of the girls and boys wrestling on mats side-by-side.

“We have to make sure we can get enough officials to make something like that happen,” he said. “There’s a shortage of officials out there as it us. Hopefully, some ladies will step in and help fill that void a little bit.

“A lot of kinks have to be ironed out yet, but it’s good for the sport this is happening. We’re excited about it.”