The first-ever PIAA sanctioned girls district tournament took place on Sunday and Catasauqua’s Aeriel Stallworth took home some hardware as she finished 4th in the 136-pound division.

Stallworth just missed out on finishing third and advancing to regionals after dropping a 6-4 decision in sudden victory to Liberty’s Doniya Anwari after rallying back from 4-0 down and send the match to extra time with a reversal with 7 seconds left in regulation.

Her only other loss was a 3-1 decision to eventual champion and occasional training partner Ruth Rivera of Whitehall in the quarterfinals. Rivera scored the decisive takedown with 18 seconds left in the match.

Each of her other four matches ended with Stallworth registering a first period pin against her opponents.

Head coach Jon Reed described Stallworth’s evolution over the course of the season, “When she came to us, the first thing she said was, ‘I’m not wrestling any guys.’ But by the middle of the season, she was wrestling with the guys in the room because we don’t have a sanctioned team. We were putting her out there and she was battling harder than any of our guys. That’s not a lie. After one of our matches, we didn’t wrestle so well, I went in and said, ‘I wish I had 12 Aeriels on this team’ because she fights and she fights and she keeps kicking.”

Reed spoke about Stallworth’s future and the future of girls wrestling at Catasauqua, “She’s only a sophomore. She has a lot of time. She’s going to be all right. We’re going to try to get a team sanctioned just for her so she can wrestle girls all year. That’s my goal now. We’ve got a girl in eighth grade who’s decent at it too. We went out and got 15 signatures of girls that want to do it. If we can get 8 to commit to it, I’m good with that.”

One of the challenges for girls wrestling at schools without a sanctioned girl’s program is that they are technically on the boys team and if they are entered in a girls event, it counts against the total number of events the boys team can compete in during the season.

Stallworth is already focused on improving. She explained, “I’m going to join a club next year. Next year I’m going to go crazy. I’m not going to get down. I’m going to be at the top. It’ll be me and her (Anwari). Last time I wrestled her, it was a short match, she pinned me. But this time it was overtime and next time it will be me.”