Thursday, October 1, 2026
When Long Beach High School inaugurated a girls’ wrestling team last fall, its 30 athletes joined girls around the country in what has become one of the nation’s fastest-growing high school sport. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, there are now more than 74,000 female high school wrestlers nationwide.
On Jan. 13, the Long Beach High team captured the Girls’ Nassau County Conference B championship.
Head coach Miguel Rodriguez said that the program has seen success in its first year despite the inexperience of its wrestlers. He noted that while some of the girls have competed in other sports — mostly soccer and lacrosse — others have not, and only five had wrestling experience. But that clearly hasn’t deterred them from building a unique camaraderie.
“As the season has gone by, the girls have gotten closer, spending more time together,” Rodriguez said. “They’re like a family.”
Before the season started in November, many students approached Rodriguez and expressed interest in joining the team. For someone who has coached the Long Beach Gladiators, a youth wrestling club, as well as the middle school soccer team, that meant a lot.
“I want kids to try something new and create memories,” said Rodriguez, who has a 4-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old step-daughter.
Similar to the boys’ high school squad, the girls practice for two hours after school every day during the week, and have learned technique and mat strategy as well as mat and body awareness.
As a male coach, Rodriguez said, getting to know his athletes has been a challenge. He has had to adjust his mindset from stern to supportive, and focus more on personal improvement.
“You can’t be as hard,” he said. “You’ve got to show a little bit of love, some TLC. It’s just different.”
While the team has attracted many newcomers to the sport, it also gave those who know wrestling — including sophomore captain Sofia Calle — a new opportunity to compete. Calle has had plenty of experience with individual sports, having practiced jiu-jitsu since she was 7 and having wrestled with the Gladiators before becoming more seriously about the sport at 14. Her younger brother, Lorenzo, 12, wrestles on the middle school team.
Rodriguez has high expectations for Sofia, and described her as a good, tough leader. “We believe she’s going to get the job done this year,” he said. “I think she’s going to be ‘the girl to be’ for sure.”
As a freshman last year, Sofia was one of four girls who wrestled on the boys’ varsity team. Despite the initial challenge of meshing with them, she said, their energy made the sport a lot more fun and made her “feel at home.” She was a county finalist, and has her sights set on becoming a girls’ county champion and placing at the girls’ state championships next month.
When she joined the new team, Sofia said, her experience made her feel more comfortable. Now she helps some of her teammates with new techniques in practice, teaching them moves like headlocks.
“It’s not the simplest thing to do,” she said. “I would just go over and help them.”
Rodriguez has known the Calle family for over 20 years. He and Sofia’s father, Christian Calle, graduated from Long Beach High in 1999. Rodriguez initially recruited Sofia to the Gladiators after seeing her jiu-jitsu skills on Christian’s Facebook page, and has been there throughout her entire wrestling career.
Christian Calle described his longtime friend as a caring and giving person, and said he wasn’t surprised that he was chosen for the girls’ wrestling job. Sofia said that Rodriguez knows how to talk to her teammates, given his experience as a “girl dad.”
Sofia’s father has been to all nine of the team’s meets this season, and said it was inspiring to see Sofia and her teammates trying something new. “Wrestling is historically a male sport,” he said. “It’s a great source of pride for me and my wife. Sofia being on the first team is really awesome.”
Part of the reason why Christian and his wife, Tatiana, let Sofia take up both jiu-jitsu and wrestling was to help her “walk more securely,” as he put it.
“We wanted to help her understand self-defense,” Christian said. “I knew it would help her confidence. It gives her a good basis for being able to protect herself.”
Even as the season winds down — the girls’ state championships will take place in Albany on Feb. 26 — Rodriguez continues to encourage more girls to try out, saying it’s a good way to develop friendships and get stronger, both mentally and physically.
“I hope that people remember this team as one of the first girls’ wrestling teams to ever exist,” he said. “They are capable of doing it.”
