PENDLETON — Dressed in her Pendleton Heights High School letter jacket, Shayla Meinders sat on the bleachers with fellow wrestler Kaylee Clendenen.

The two senior wrestlers were relegated to cheering on their male teammates since they would not be competing against Mt. Vernon High School wrestlers during a recent match.

That’s the way things often fall when you’re a female wrestler taking part in an state-sanctioned male sport, the girls said.

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Sometimes there aren’t enough wrestlers to allow the girls to compete against the boys, and rarely do other teams have female wrestlers to give the girls a fair match-up.

“Once you get past the weight of about 132 (pounds), you get out-muscled by guys, so it would be nice to have a more even playing field against just girls,” Clendenen said.

Still, it has not stopped the girls from enjoying the wrestling season; they’re competing where they can and hoping for a time when their efforts in wrestling — and those of others like them — will result in an Indiana High School Athletic Association-sanctioned girls wrestling program throughout the state, even though state athletics leaders said that prospect is still a long way off.

This season, Clendenen wrestled at 152 pounds and had only a couple of matches because of injuries; Meinders wrestled at 113 pounds and had a good regular season, winning several matches against boys, including finishing fifth in the recent county tournament.

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling to beat a guy, but you also feel kind of bad for them because you just embarrassed them,” Meinders said.

It’s been a banner year for the nine female wrestlers who took part on this year’s Arabians wrestling squad, coach Dave Cloud said. The number of female wrestlers is triple that of last year.

Cloud has seen an uptick in interest from girls who want to take part in the sport since female wrestling is catching on at the NCAA Division 1 level and in the Olympics.

Cloud has always advocated for allowing girls to compete in wrestling, a sport he’s coached for 33 years.

He had the school’s first female wrestler, Katie (Downing) Kriebel, back in 1994-1998.

Kriebel, known around the world as a pioneer for female wrestling, wrestled in college at the University of Minnesota-Morris. She went on to become an Indiana Hall of Fame wrestler and a bronze medalist at the 2005 World Championships.

Kriebel is one of Cloud’s assistants; she works with the nine female wrestlers, including five freshmen, with hopes of someday being able to boast of an all-girls wrestling program in the state.

There’s a good chance, Cloud said, girls wrestling will be the next sport sanctioned by the IHSAA, if the interest from young girls continues to grow.

“There’s an infrastructure already in place,” Cloud said. “You’ve already got a wrestling room or wrestling place in most schools, (and) a wrestling coach, so it would be relatively easy.”

However, IHSAA officials noted there are no plans to sanction girls wrestling anytime soon.

Robert Faulkens, assistant commissioner of the IHSAA, said girls wrestling is still a long way from becoming an official girls high school sport, if ever.

“We just don’t have enough schools interested or enough girls to participate,” Faulkens said. “The numbers are not even close yet.”

State athletics leaders keep track of every wrestler by school and gender and report the figures to coaches. But they haven’t seen the kind of movement to indicate a need to sanction the sport, Faulkens said.

For the first time, there was an Indiana High School Girls Wrestling regional and state tournament last year. This year’s regional took place last week, with the state tournament set for 5 p.m. Friday at Lawrence North High School.

The events are sponsored by the Indiana High School Wrestling Coaches Associations and are not official IHSAA events, despite attracting hundreds of female wrestlers throughout the state.

Kriebel said she is thrilled to provide girls an opportunity to experience the personal competition wrestling provides and said it’s been fun watching the girls and boys at Pendleton Heights work together to get better.

“Even if you’re a boy stepping onto the mat for the first time, you’re going to have to prove you belong there and you can hack it, and then you’re looked upon as a wrestler,” Kriebel said.

The female wrestlers at Pendleton Heights go through the same workouts as the boys and are considered teammates who just happen to be girls, Cloud said.

He’d love to see more girls around the state take part so his female wrestlers could compete week in and week out against equal competition.

The girls couldn’t agree more and admit it’s hard sometimes being a girl in a traditionally male sport.

In the beginning, most people probably think a girl will quit wrestling after a few days, the girls said, but sticking with the sport and proving yourself is the key.

“You have to prove to yourself you’re in this, and you’ve got to bring it,” Clendenen said. “The guys have your back 100 percent, once they see you are serious.”