New Regional High School Girls’ Wresting Team Includes Saratoga Springs

Faced with small rosters but growing interest in girls’ wrestling, the Queensbury Union Free School District has spearheaded a unified girls wrestling team to include Saratoga Springs, South Glens Falls Central, and Hudson Falls school districts. 

Queensbury wrestling coach John Favata has been the architect behind the formation of a multi-council girls’ wrestling team for the upcoming school year. 

“The main goal is to highlight and grow girls’ wrestling. I’m really just excited to have the opportunity for girls to wrestle,” Favata said. “The biggest thing that I’ve found was the roadblock for girls to get into wrestling was that they had to wrestle boys in practice.” 

The tentative name for the team is “Northern Peaks,” and the wrestlers will sport black and grey singlets. 

Favata realized the interest in girls’ wrestling in the 2024-25 season when then junior Lillie-Mae Sheldrick was wrestling with the boys’ team. She then went to the girls’ sectional tournament held at Guilderland High School that postseason.

“I was like, we’re missing something here. This is something that we as a school should be a part of,” Favata recalled. 

The next year Favata and Sheldrick started the first girls’ wrestling team at Queensbury. Sheldrick even qualified for the first girls’ state tournament held last year in Albany. 

Now, going into the 2026-27 school year, Favata successfully campaigned for a unified girls’ wrestling team. 

“There’s no better way to collaborate with local schools to help grow a female sport, but we also want to make sure that we have representation from every school,” said John Martin, who will replace retiring Athletic Director Richard Keys.

During Queensbury’s inaugural girls’ wrestling season in 2025-26, the team started with about ten athletes and ended the season with seven. The merger of the four teams should help fill the 15 weight classes and continue the growth of the sport, Keys said.

“It will allow us the training partners that we need in the practice room, and it’ll allow us more girls to fill the various weight classes,” Keys said. “There’s nothing more frustrating in wrestling than to train all week, then not have a match because they don’t have somebody in that weight class. So, when you schedule an opponent, you always try to schedule teams that have a full roster.”

Queensbury will act as team host, and practices will take place at Queensbury Middle School. Organizers plan to schedule one match at each of the respective schools to showcase the program and generate interest in the sport. 

“It’s one of the fastest growing sports in the country,” Keys said. “And I think now that Division 1 collegiate wrestling has bonafide girls’ teams, it’s taken off. There’s quite a bit of talent within the region, within Section 2, within the capital district where girls are having some opportunities to continue wrestling beyond high school.”