Payton Pomeroy is from a family of wrestlers, and she soon will do something that no one in her immediate family has accomplished.

Payton, a seventh grader at Noe Middle School who competes for Pleasure Ridge Park High School, has qualified for the first KHSAA girls wrestling state championship Feb. 17.

Her dad is a wrestling coach, her older brother is a wrestler, and she has been wrestling since she was in second grade.

"I wanted to be with my dad more, so I decided to start wrestling. I just liked it a lot, so I kept going," Payton said.

At first, her father wasn't going for it and didn't want her to wrestle, but her mom said yes.

"She was very quiet, soft-spoken, wore her heart on her sleeve, lacked a lot of confidence," Jessica Pomeroy said of Payton. "And this sport has just made her flourish in all those areas of independence and confidence. She has confidence in her ability to do things on and off the mat. This is a very challenging sport, mentally and physically. I think wrestling just helps everyone in general, but for this sport to be available for females and to help take away from those social stigmas with weight and everything else. ... So while it's not completely developed, it is bringing girls to this sport with confidence, and that's great."

Girls high school wrestling is on the rise in Kentucky after being sanctioned by the KHSAA in February 2023.

Some girls wrestled in Kentucky before the sport was sanctioned, but they often had to wrestle boys or were left out altogether because of the lack of coed or all-girls wrestling tournaments.

The number of girls wrestlers increased by slightly more than 200 from the 2022-2023 to the 2023-2024 seasons.

Last year, there were 378 registered girls wrestlers in Kentucky, and on Jan. 17, the KHSAA Board of Control announced there were 586 girls wrestlers.

Payton had to wrestle boys for most of her career because there wasn't another girl at a tournament or practice.

The biggest challenge Payton had to overcome was the boys' strength. Through training and wrestling camps, she started to get some wins despite the boys' strength advantage.

"Showing people that girls can also wrestle because a lot of people underestimate them, or they just root for the boy more, so if the girl wins, it shows that girls can also win," Payton said.

"Strength is becoming a bigger issue as she's getting older," said Marshall Pomeroy, Payton's dad. "The ultimate goal for her is to wrestle against girls 100%, so when the opportunity came to wrestle in girls-only tournaments, even though it was high school, we knew with her experience, she was going to be fine. It was just a matter of her understanding that she had the skill level to compete with high school girls."

At the KHSAA Region 2 Girls Wrestling Tournament, Payton finished first at 100 pounds. Payton said she was confident heading into regionals after winning her nine matches and being crowned Queen of the Ville in her weight class.

"Now I see the importance of girls wrestling and how good girls are. I've been a coach for a long time. Girls are easier to coach. Had I known that, I would have started the girls team 20 years ago," Marshall said. "I think one thing that I know is important from what I've seen from these high school teams is by having an all-girls team that has their own separate practice areas from the boys, it really promotes growth. It's just the girls at that age I think are uncomfortable, and the boys, too, are uncomfortable wrestling the girls."

Thomas Noe has coached wrestling at Male High School for six years and has been its head coach the last three.

Noe's first year as a Male assistant coach was 2019, when the Kentucky Wrestling Coaches Association sponsored the first girls state championship.

"To see where it's come now, absolutely incredible. Not only the amount of participation, but the skill level, how it's a jump from Year 1 to Year 6, is absolutely amazing," Noe said.

Junior Lana Reeves and senior Sarah Hellmann are two of Noe's best wrestlers.

Reeves recently won the Region 2 tournament at 107, and Hellmann placed third at 235.

Reeves said she decided to join the wrestling team as a freshman and has a lot of goals to accomplish before she graduates.

"I want to be a state champion at my weight class and to be Male's first female state champion," Reeves said. "Wrestling the girls, it's a community, and we've grown so much, and I'm just meeting a lot of expectations that I wanted my freshman year."

Noe said progress continues to be made for girls wrestlers.

"They just didn't have many opportunities and schools, and we didn't have the support, the coaching numbers, to be able to run the girls tournament and have the guys team, so they just had to tag along with the guys for a while, and now they're finally getting their opportunity and the spotlight that they deserve."

Reach sports reporter Prince James Story at pstory@gannett.com and follow him on X at @PrinceJStory.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: KHSAA wrestling: Girls prepare for first state tournament Feb. 17