History was made over the weekend in Louisiana sports. and it all happened at the Brookshire Grocery Arena in Bossier City. The arena played host to the 2025 Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) State Wrestling Meet. And this year, female wrestlers competed in their own division, with 12 weight classes last Friday and Saturday, February 14-15. As Sean Richardson with the Louisiana Radio Network reports, the authority’s Assistant Executive Director Adam MacDowell explained, “This is the inaugural year in Louisiana for high school girls wrestling. Everybody’s excited. It’s electric. People are phoning in about it. It’s great.”
For this culmination of the 2024-25 season, the finale allowed 212 female athletes to compete for their own individual and team state titles. Baton Rouge High School won the team competition, while two lady wrestlers from Northwest Louisiana became state champions. That includes Natalie Davis of Haughton High School in the G120 weight class, and Audrina Wade of Benton High School in G132.
Beyond the winners’ podium, each of the 212 female athletes had their own unique journey to get to this point. That includes 14-year-old Alivia Allen, a 9th grader at Archbishop Hannan High School in Covington, Louisiana. “It’s definitely been different than like any other sport like imaginable. And it’s mostly seen like a physical sport. But it’s definitely a giant mental sport, where it’s just a constant mental fight of ‘can I do more?’”
As a first-year high schooler, Allen describes this inaugural season of a girl’s wrestling division as a unique experience, knowing that many people are not quite up-to-date just yet on girls wrestling. “Yeah, like a, ‘oh, I didn’t know that they did that.’ Or like, ‘oh, you wrestle?’ Kind of like a surprise.” Allen says bridging the gender gap and fighting long-standing stereotypes is not always easy. “It’s a little bit of pressure to show everyone that like girls can wrestle too and it’s not just like boys who are like tough.”
Fortunately, Allen’s mother, Heather Billson, has been with her daughter every step of the way, in what she too describes as a unique experience. “People are very surprised. What I enjoy about it is the discipline that it will afford my daughter. And hopefully, the lessons she’ll carry throughout life.” With girls now having a dedicated wrestling division of their own, it ends the challenges faced by girls in past wrestling seasons. “There were girls competing long before this. They just had to wrestle against the boys.”
Billson’s daughter may not have won any awards during this year’s state wrestling meet, but mother and daughter appear to be on the same page for what comes next, as mom explained, “We kind of took this as a learning year. We’ll be back next year. And hopefully more successful than this year.”
The state championship featured three boys’ divisions with 14 weight classes each. For complete results on that part of the story just click here.
